


Gemütlichkeit, or Everyone Has a First

by 14CombatGeishas



Series: Misadventures of the SI-5's Best Agents [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: AIs, Asexuality, Discussion of Gender, Found Family, Gen, Jacobi POV, Maxwell POV, Mission Fic, Pre-Canon, SI-5, a more innocent and inexperienced Jacobi and Maxwell, character focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-09-28 17:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 61,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10140620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14CombatGeishas/pseuds/14CombatGeishas
Summary: It's been two months since Alana Maxwell joined SI-5, in the wake of committing her first kill she and Daniel Jacobi are sent on a mission to repair an AI in Germany.  It seems like an easy job...or it does at first, but life in the SI-5 is never what it seems...Plus, lovely chai tea, a $50 bet, a proud mother bird, a White Knight, "From Russia with Love," an excellent soldier, Franzbrötchen, fireworks, and movie references.





	1. "You are a Monster...and So Am I"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jasmin (eulenstadt)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jasmin+%28eulenstadt%29).



> This takes place before the bulk of "I'm Your Savior" but starts at the flashback of Chapter 6. However, so you can read this fic without reading IYS the first chapter is an extended version of that flashback. Because of the similarity I'm posting the two chapters today so that if you've read IYS and remember the flashback I'm talking about you can skip to chapter 2. Takes place in March of 2013.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part I: Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA
> 
> In which Maxwell pulls the trigger and Jacobi has before

 

No matter what she became, Alana Maxwell wasn’t born a monster.  Goddard Futuristics changed its employees.  When she was hired in 2013 she never thought she would become what she was in 2016, not until the night she first killed someone.

It was early in her time at Goddard Futuristics, nearly two months after Kepler finally got her to sign on.  She hadn’t been expecting it, despite having been trained with a firearm and the heavy implication that she would use it.  She doubted she _ever_ would have been expecting it.  There wouldn’t have been a point in her life she was _ready_ to kill someone.  It just had to _happen._

It was late.  She and Jacobi were the last two human beings left in the building, and two of only three life forms still there – the last being Eunomia, the laboratory’s AI assistant.  Maxwell coded at her terminal.  “Five more minutes,” she said, glancing momentarily up at Jacobi.  

Jacobi sat backwards in a desk chair reading a broken-spined paperback copy of Stephen King’s _Dreamcatcher_.  “Uh-huh,” he said sarcastically, turning the page.  “Just like you said two hours ago.”

“Maybe ten minutes,” Maxwell conceded.  “An hour, tops.”

Jacobi said nothing, gave her a disbelieving look, and returned to his book.  A minute of near silence passed when, suddenly, the lights flickered and died.  Protocol indicated that whenever there was a power outage of any kind, the emergency systems should engage.  But they did not.  The emergency lights did not turn on.  

“What the Hell happened?” Jacobi asked.  

“I’m not sure,” Maxwell answered. “Eunomia?”  She was worried about the AI.  It was her job to keep this place regulated, and in the two months Maxwell knew her, the AI had never made a mistake.  

Eunomia’s chipper voice answered, “Yes, Dr. Maxwell?”  She sounded fine, which confused Maxwell further.  This shouldn’t happen, and it certainly shouldn’t happen while Eunomia was alive and well.  

“What happened to the lights?” Maxwell asked.  

“What do you mean?” Eunomia replied, her chipper tone changing, sounding slightly confused.  

“They’re off!” Jacobi pointed out, “We simple humans can’t see in the dark!”

“But, that’s not possible, Mr. Jacobi, my sensors aren’t indicating anything’s wrong,” said Eunomia.  “All sensory data is nominal.”

“It’s not nominal down here,” Jacobi assured her.  “Check the lights.”

“The lights are…they’re off!  The entire lighting grid is offline!  The system’s been compromised!  But…that doesn’t match my input at all!”  Eunomia sounded increasingly panicked.  

“Whose fault is that?!” Jacobi grumbled.

“I don’t think it’s Eunomia’s,” said Maxwell slowly.  “I think...I think someone might have hacked into her receptor systems.  I think they’re altering the sensory data…”

“What?” Eunomia asked, her digital voice revealing shock and horror.  

“Can anybody do that?” asked Jacobi.  It did sound like an impossible task to someone on the outside.  But AI’s were no different from human beings in certain ways.  They were still people, and people could be tricked.  The difference was that when an AI was tricked, they fell for it more completely than any human being ever could.  

“Yes.   _I_ could and so can four other people I can think of off the top of my head,” Maxwell answered.  She absolutely could modify an AI’s sensory data.  She could alter memories if she wanted to.  In her hands, an AI’s brain was essentially playdough.  She could do almost anything to it.  But why would she?  Why would anyone do that to another living being?  There were times when she could understand a certain rationale behind it, when she could excuse it.  But outside of the AI equivalent of electroshock treatments, therapeutically scrambling their brain, she didn’t know a reason to do it.  Even if you were getting rid of something unpleasant in an AI’s software, why would you take away their free will?  Every single person in the world deserved that respect.  Only a monster would take it away.  “But why would they want to?”

“Because another multi-billion dollar corporation is probably giving them a big fat cheque to do it,” Jacobi replied.  In the light from her computer screen she saw Jacobi close his book and stand up.  “Eunomia, this place’s got emergency lights.”

“Yes, Mr. Jacobi,” Eunomia sounded rattled.   

“It wasn’t a question.  Turn them on.”

“Oh, right,” the AI said, and the dim red lights flickered on in the lab.

“You will be okay,” Maxwell assured her.  “We’ll catch whoever did this to you.”

“Thank you, Dr. Maxwell,” said a very frightened Eunomia.

Jacobi took his RIA 1911 from his holster and cocked it.  “Get your gun,” he said to Maxwell.  

She blinked.  She wasn’t used to carrying any weapons.   Jacobi always seemed to have at least a firearm on him at all times – she wouldn’t have been surprised if she found out he carried a liter of nitroglycerin – but she kept her gun in her desk drawer.  She never saw the reason in carrying it around the lab, around town, around the house, or anywhere else Jacobi took his.  Indeed, she knew he had a spare Glock 17 pistol in the glove compartment of his Volvo 1800 ES.  The apartment that she’d visited seemed to have military equipment instead of a carpet and he always had some accelerant in a labeled pitcher in his fridge.  Maxwell assumed it was some quirk of Jacobi’s.  Mostly.  But she had found out that many of her coworkers, including her supervisors Doctors Lisa Zimmerman and Taylor Sakaki, concealed-carried at all times.  It wasn’t so much Jacobi as it was Goddard personnel in general.

“Maxwell,” Jacobi said with some force when she didn’t immediately respond.  “This isn’t a joke.  If someone got in here, they mean business.”  

“Right.” She opened the drawer and removed the gun from where it was acting as a particularly dangerous paperweight.  It was a Beretta M9. She had initially been given an NAA Sidewinder, but Jacobi talked her into getting the Beretta.  (“Bond used a Beretta, not an M9, obviously.  But I like the M9.  Nine millimeter, semi-auto, 17-shot magazine.  M9’s are great for concealed-carry; they’re safe, easy to modify, easy to take care of, you’ll love it!  I’ve got one at home, and it’s awesome!  You have got to get an M9 before you're stuck with your dinky Sidewinder forever.”) Jacobi was the one who took her to Goddard Futuristics’ ballistics range to try it out.  And Jacobi and his gathered crowd of co-workers had been dumbstruck when Maxwell showed off the sharpshooting skills she barely knew she had.  She had shot cans off fences with BB guns in Montana as a little girl, but that was hardly anything like a real gun.  Apparently the skills transferred.  

“Okay,” he said, “let’s go.  Eunomia, work on fixing the lights, but don’t let the bastard know we’re onto them.”

“Yes, Mr. Jacobi.”

Jacobi and Maxwell split up to comb the complex for the spy.  Jacobi took the C and D wings, where the ballistics labs were, and Maxwell patrolled the A and B wings, which were for computer R&D labs. Maxwell held her gun in front of her, still feeling awkward, both terrified and amused at the thought that she was carrying a loaded pistol in a blackened building as if she were Dana Scully.  

She could barely believe it was her doing this.  She didn’t know why she felt so strange.  It wasn’t as if she was a stranger to guns.  Her family had many out in Montana and often went hunting.  When she was growing up they had had four hunting rifles, three shotguns – even though food was readily available without killing it themselves – and a handgun for “home protection,” despite the fact they lived in a town where everyone feared and revered her father.  The residents would sooner starve than steal from Pastor Maxwell.  

She was never interested in the firearms beyond the BB gun she played with.  Nor, as a girl, was she forced to attend hunting trips like her three brothers were.  And their hobby seemed as different from this as shooting a home movie differed from a feature film.  This was so much more real.  And she could barely begin to comprehend the consequences.  

Maxwell happened to find the spy first.

She heard a noise, just a quiet scuffling sound, maybe a boot on tile.  She stiffened, staring into the darkness.  A shape rounded a corner.  Tall, dressed all in black from boots to mask.  He startled her and almost before she knew what she was doing, she had fired off four shots.  Her wrist cracked back from the recoil.  The _bang, bang, bang, bang!_ echoed endlessly around her.  The man fell to the ground, collapsing like a puppet whose strings have been cut.  Her gun felt hot and heavy in her hands.  She slowly lowered it.  Her heart was pounding.  She stood staring for a long time, the only sound was the ringing in her ears and her own desperate breathing.

“Maxwell?!” Jacobi’s voice from behind her.  She didn’t know how long he – or she, herself – had been standing there.  She didn’t look at him.  She didn’t respond.  She stood transfixed over her victim.  “Alana?!”

It was the first time he ever said her given name.  It startled her out of her near-fugue state.  She wasn’t used to being called by her first name by anyone anymore.  Even before Goddard Futuristics, where everyone seemed to exclusively refer to each other by either title and/or last name, she had gotten very used to simply being “Dr. Maxwell.”  She was never close enough to anyone to become “Alana.”  When was the last time anyone had called her that?  Was it MIT?  Was it before that?  Was it her family or her high school teachers?  

She turned to face him.  “D-Daniel?”  It was hard to get the word out, her throat was tightly knotted from emotion and the name felt unfamiliar on her tongue.  But for some reason there was something deeply comforting in calling him by his first name and hearing him say hers.  It meant they knew each other.  It meant they trusted each other.  They cared about each other enough to break the title-last name convention.  

They were _friends_.  

They were friends and he could help her with this.  

He had her back, just as she would have his.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. She shook her head.  His run became a jog, then a walk as he approached the body.

Maxwell thought she might cry and cursed herself for that, and for shaking so badly.  Her eyes followed Jacobi to the corpse.  She watched as he examined the body, tears flooding her eyes.  She couldn’t force them back.  They streamed silently down her cheeks.

The four shots had hit the intruder in the shoulder, the gut, the chest, and the last cleaved his face, entering on the left side of his chin and exiting behind his right ear.  There was no need to check for a pulse.  He was dead.  The pool of cooling blood looked black in the dark.  There was a gun beside him.  Jacobi picked it up and checked the clip.  Full.  He checked the man’s equipment belt.  A touch screen, a glasscutter, a thumb drive, latex gloves, a few other tools.  Jacobi pocketed the drive.  

He pulled off the man’s balaclava, letting his head thud hard against the ground.  Jacobi took out his flashlight and turned the light on the man’s face.  Maxwell did not recognize the face beneath the mask, but that might have been because it was so altered by that last bullet.  The hall reeked.  “Do you know him?” Jacobi asked.

Maxwell shook her head and managed a whispered, “No.”

“We’re okay,” he said.  He looked back up at Maxwell.   She wasn’t.  She did this.  She killed a man.  Oh God.  She’d _killed_ a man.   _Oh God._  She sank to her knees, one hand over her mouth.  He was dead, gone, extinguished, and it was her fault.  “...Alana…” Jacobi said her name again, looked from her to the body, and back.  Seeing her expression, he sighed, and then spoke gently, more gently than she had ever heard him before, “I’ll clean this up.  You go get Eunomia up and running.  Meet me back in your lab.”

Maxwell nodded but didn’t reply.  The hall felt longer than it did before.  Darker.  She felt heavier.  

“Is that you, Dr. Maxwell?  I can’t tell what’s going on!” Eunomia said hopelessly when Maxwell entered the sub-basement where her CPU was stored.  “My recording units picked up gunshots!  Are you and Mr. Jacobi alright?”

“Yes…” Maxwell answered quietly.  “Jacobi and I are fine.”  But she couldn’t elaborate, not even when Eunomia asked.  She couldn’t get it out over the lump in her throat.  

Within minutes, she had Eunomia running properly again, having removed the program that was altering the AI’s sensory input.  The lights came back on immediately. Eunomia had already made that repair, but hadn’t been sure if it was safe to re-engage them.  Once done, Maxwell went back to the lab and sunk into her desk chair.  She stared at the wall, trying not to think about what happened and thinking of nothing else.  

A shape rounding a corner.  Black on black.  The weight of the gun in her hand.  Firing the gun before she even knew it, she felt it snapping back in her wrist, the recoil shooting down her arm.  

_Bang, bang, bang, bang!_

The black shape, a human being, falling, crumpling, collapsing to the ground.  

_Bang, bang, bang, bang!_

Blood spattering outward, black arcs in the dark.  The metal stench.  

_Bang, bang, bang, bang!_

When exactly did he die?  Was it the first shot?  The second?  Had he survived long enough to feel his skull crack and brain matter gush outward?  Was he dead as soon as the bullet hit or was there a period of time when he was horribly aware he was dying?  Did he see her before she pulled the trigger?  Was there a moment where he faced his killer and knew what she was?  Was he afraid?

It felt like hours before Jacobi came back.  There was blood on his clothes, but he’d washed it off his hands.  Jacobi looked at her and the businesslike expression disappeared from his face; it softened into a look Maxwell had never seen on him before.  An expression she had very rarely seen in her lifetime.  Empathy.  Sympathy.  Something like that.  No one had ever cared about her enough.  “Do you want a coffee?” he asked.  

She nodded.  

He crossed to the Keurig and popped in one of the plastic pods.  “Half and half, right?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said quietly.  He took the carton from the mini-fridge and poured some into her cup, mixing it with a plastic stirrer.  He sucked the excess coffee off the stirrer before tossing it into the trash.  Then he crossed to Maxwell, pushing the chair he’d been sitting in earlier closer so he could sit next to her.  

He put the coffee on her desk, took her gun from his belt and put it back in the drawer, closing it softly.  Then he took another gun from his opposite side, the Colt from the intruder, and put it in front of her, beside the coffee.  “If you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed you.”

Maxwell nodded.  She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but it didn’t help.  

Jacobi must have seen that because, after a long moment of silence, he asked, “...You good?”

“I’m a monster,” she whispered.  

Jacobi said something she didn’t expect.  “Yeah, you are.”

She let out a sound, a bark; even she didn’t know if it was a laugh or a sob.  The knot in her throat tightened painfully.  She put her face in her hands and sobbed.  

Jacobi put his hand on her shoulder, awkwardly, as if he wasn’t used to the gesture.  “Alana, look at me.”  She obeyed, her vision blurry from the tears.  Jacobi looked kind, understanding, even with the stain of blood on his t-shirt.  “You are a monster, but so is Major Kepler.  So’re your supervisors.  So’s whoever works there,” he nodded towards the desk next to hers.  Then his dark narrow eyes found her wide brown ones.  He spoke even more frankly,  “And so am I.  It comes with the job.  But just because we do terrible things, just because we’re monsters, doesn’t mean it’s easy.”  

She let out a shuddering breath, “I can’t do this.”  

“Yes, you _can_ ,” he assured her.  “You can and you _have_ to.  We don’t get a choice.”  He removed his hand from her shoulder, sat down, and let out a breath.  “If it helps…it gets easier.  After a while, it doesn’t hurt so much.”

“How many times have you done this, Daniel?”  Maxwell asked.  “How many people have you killed?”

Jacobi raised his eyebrows and gave her a mirthless smile.  A gallows smile.  “Jeez, I don’t know.  I’ve lost count.  I lost count a loooong time ago.”  

“How do you deal with it?” she whispered.  

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he answered.  “Probably makes me worse, but,” he shrugged, “it’s better without the pain.  Most of them…” he reconsidered, “A lot of them would do the same to you.  And if they weren’t going to, there are people in Goddard who would.” A long silence in which Maxwell considered what he had said.  For all she knew, Goddard Futuristics had an entire division to take out disloyal employees, or Jacobi himself would be the one sent to kill her.  Jacobi broke the silence, “Eventually, it makes sense.”

“What does?” Maxwell asked.

He gestured vaguely around him.  “This place.  The rules.  The missions.  You start to understand why you’re a monster.  You go with it.  You embrace it.”

She was surprised. She didn’t think that was possible.  She laughed mirthlessly and incredulously.  “Bullshit,” she choked.

“I know you don’t believe me now, but you will.  In the end it isn’t so bad…in the end we get paid well, we get to see the world, we get to do what we want and nobody can stop us, and we get homes...friends…respect.  All things considered, being a monster is pretty good.”

A pause as Maxwell considered what he said.  Then, slowly, she nodded.  There were benefits to working for Goddard Futuristics, that was true.  No one here tried to stop her research.  No one here wanted her to appear before an ethics committee.  No one made sexist comments.  And she had Jacobi.  She picked up her coffee and took a sip.  Jacobi sat back, watching her, waiting for her.  The weight of what she had done still hurt, but the promise that this pain would go away was reassuring. “Daniel?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

 


	2. A Snake in a Suit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cutter kills someone and drinks chai tea and monsters have feelings

_ Incident Report#: _ _130111A_

_Employee Name:_ _D. Jacobi_

_Employee ID Number:_ _DJBT359_

_ Division/Section/Department: _ _Strategic Intelligence Division. Section 5. Ballistics._

_ Date of Incident: _ _03/06/2013_

_ Time of Incident: ~ _ _00:23_

_Date of Report:_ _03/06/2013_

_Time of Report:_ _04:00_

 

_On the morning of 03/06/2013 at ~00:23 hours there was a break-in to building 3C.  Dr. Alana Maxwell, Eunomia (MX550 Unit 039), and I were the only people in the building at this time.  Dr. Maxwell and I became aware of the forced-entry at 00:23 when the lights and security systems were shut down. Eunomia was unaware of the situation because her sensory data had been compromised.  A program was put in place to make her internal readouts appear nominal, meaning Eunomia didn’t recognize her error until Dr. Maxwell and I pointed it out.  Due to the late hour I believe the spy was unaware that any humans were still in the building and believed Eunomia would not know anything unusual was happening._

_Dr. Maxwell and I went in pursuit of the intruder armed with a Beretta M9 and Rock Island Armory 1911, respectively.  She took wings A-B and I took C-D.  Dr. Maxwell was the first to encounter the intruder outside of lab 6.  She discharged four shots, one to the intruder’s right shoulder (through and through into the wall behind), one to the left-hand side of his chest (through and through into the wall behind), one to the center of his abdomen, and one that entered under his chin on the left side and emerged behind his right ear (through and through into the ceiling).  The threat was immediately neutralized.  Four shots were discharged, four shots accounted for.  The intruder was not recognized by either Dr. Maxwell or myself.  In his equipment belt we found a glasscutter, a Colt Delta Elite w/ silencer, a tetrabyte thumb drive (item #130111B), among other items, full list on page 130111A–05.  He was ~6’0”, ~200 LBS,  late 30s, black hair, most likely of Middle Eastern or Northern African descent, no identifying scars or marks.  He had no identification on his person._

_I believe he was sent by Goddard’s competition, probably with the assistance of a mole within the Strategic Intelligence Division.  The program used to trick Eunomia is probably our best means of tracking the intruder.  He probably had inside help to get onto the premises.  According to Dr. Maxwell there are four people among the staff who could write a program like the one used on Eunomia (Dr. Lisa Zimmerman, Dr. Taylor Sakaki, Dr. Charity Kwan, and Dr. Nathan O’Neil)…_

Jacobi’s report went on from there. He had no doubt Cutter already knew a lot of the information Jacobi listed, but he followed procedure to the letter on this sort of bureaucratic stuff.  

Except one lie of omission.  He was careful to leave out that Maxwell herself was one of those few who could have altered Eunomia’s sensory data.  If she hadn’t been Maxwell, Jacobi would have thought the person who dispatched the intruder was the one who was working with him.  Covering her tracks.

But this was _Maxwell_.  They’d only known each other two months, but already Jacobi found himself liking her and trusting her more than he did most people.  Would he trust her with his life?  No.  But he knew one thing: she didn’t do this.  Besides, no one was so good an actor they could pull off what Maxwell did last night: the agony she experienced from her very first kill.  

Jacobi didn’t know why he was attempting to keep Maxwell’s skill a secret from Cutter.  Of course Cutter knew Maxwell was the unmentioned fifth person.  He knew _everything._  But Jacobi felt the urge to protect her from their boss.  He would have thrown anyone else to the wolf behind the shiny desk, but, again, Maxwell was different and he was only vaguely aware of why.  He had never had a friend before and the experience was new.  

It seemed there was something else Cutter knew, too, that Jacobi hadn’t.  He was completely unsurprised to hear about the break-in or the proposed leak.  Or at the very least he was completely unfazed when he called Jacobi into his office.  Then again, Jacobi didn’t know what an anxious Cutter would look like.  Nor did he want to know.

Around 10 a.m., Jacobi was called into Cutter’s enormous office overlooking the entirety of the main Goddard complex from his ergonomic throne. Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised two of the four walls.  Everything was neat, minimalist, and modern, from the cabinets to the bookshelf, to the chairs.  His desk was large, black, sparkling, and rounded.  On it was a little zen garden with white sand, sleek black computer, two expensive looking fountain pens, a white phone, and white intercom.  There were three black curved chairs facing Cutter’s desk, but Jacobi remained standing.  It was impossible to get comfortable in front of someone like Cutter.  Gentle classical music, a piece Jacobi didn’t recognize, played from the only old object in the room, a record player, as the men spoke.   

Physically, if Mr. Cutter had been anyone else in the world, he would not have been intimidating.  It was doubtful anyone would have even noticed him were he not Mr. Cutter.  He was of average height, neither heavy nor thin for his size.  He was smaller than Jacobi, but it felt as if Cutter towered over him.  It felt as if Cutter was larger than even Major Kepler.  His age was impossible to determine.  Jacobi was almost certain Cutter was older than he was, but there was no way to know by how much or even if that assumption was correct.  Despite the fact his light brown skin was unwrinkled and his black hair didn’t have a single strand of gray, he didn’t look unusually young.  His dark brown eyes were sharp and bright.  His hair was jet black, neat, with a crisp part.  His smile was very white and very broad and very toothy.  His accent, like his looks, was from nowhere in particular.  Flat and American.  Cutter was immaculately well-dressed, neat, perfect.  He didn’t have a single scar or blemish, as if everyone and everything else was just as intimidated by him as Jacobi was.  

He couldn’t place what it was, but something about Cutter forcibly reminded Jacobi of a snake in a suit.

As a child, Jacobi thought his father was the scariest person in the world.  Then he met Major Kepler.  Then he was proven wrong again when he met Mr. Cutter.  He didn’t think there was a single organism in the universe that could beat Mr. Cutter for that title.  And if there was, Jacobi hoped he never met it.

“You had quite a night, didn’t you, Daniel?” Cutter said after his brief greeting.  He had Jacobi’s incident report in front of him on the desk.  He gestured to the page as he spoke.  

“Yes, sir,” said Jacobi when it became clear Cutter actually expected an answer.  

“Tired?” he asked in that friendly voice.  

“No, sir,” Jacobi only half lied.  He had been exhausted before coming up here.  He hadn’t been home in over 24 hours now and he hadn’t slept in even longer.  But being called into Cutter’s office forcibly woke him, more powerfully than caffeine ever could.  Cutter’s presence was too intimidating to leave room for fatigue.  It put his brain an inch from fight-or-flight mode.  

“Can I offer you coffee or tea?  I’ve got a _lovely_ chai that I’ve never heard a soul complain about,” smiled Cutter.

“I’m…I’m fine sir,” Jacobi said.  His mouth was very dry but the idea of letting his guard down around Cutter to even take a sip around him was unthinkable.  

“Suit yourself,” Cutter shrugged.  He buzzed for his secretary to get him some chai and a single cup, then went back to Jacobi’s incident report.  After a moment, his secretary brought in a tray with a little teapot, a sugar bowl, one of those small, unhandled cups and saucers they sold at high-end tea shops, everything red.  The arrangement was photo-shoot perfect, from the shiny spoon, to the spotless teapot.  The red of the material stood out starkly against the black and whites with which the rest of the office was decorated. Cutter poured himself a cup of reddish tea as he spoke matter-of-factly.  “You’ll be happy to know the remains of our unknown friend have been put through the incinerator.”

“That’s good,” Jacobi said again when Cutter paused for a response.  He was sure “unknown” at this point meant “unknown to Jacobi.”  He doubted Cutter was still in the dark.  Cutter went about preparing his cup of tea.  He stirred in a teaspoon of sugar carefully, the spoon softly _tink, tink, tink_ ing against the rim of the cup.  

“I enjoyed reading your theory.  Very thoughtful, Daniel.”  A slight chuckle, “It _is_ true everyone wants a piece of Goddard’s pie.  We have a lot to offer.”  A pause, in which Cutter took a long sip of his tea and sighed in satisfaction.  He shot Jacobi a warm smile like a teacher praising a student, “And your paperwork is as impeccable as always.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jacobi answered, still standing at attention.  People rarely expected Jacobi to be as capable of order and neatness as he was.  Just because as a general rule Daniel Jacobi was a bit of a slob didn’t mean he wasn’t _capable._  Ballistics was a lot more than just the final explosion– the spectacular chaos was the aftermath – it took a lot of order and organization to get there. Exactness and meticulousness were key.  He excelled at both, that was why he still had all his limbs.  Cutter and Kepler were among the few who knew that Jacobi was an excellent pencil pusher as well as ballistics expert.

Jacobi expected to be dismissed.  He wasn’t.  Cutter kept talking.  “That Alana is a Hell of a shot, isn’t she?  Two of those bullets would have been instantly lethal on their own.  The chest wound went straight through his heart’s left ventricle and I’m sure you can guess what that head wound did to his brain.”  Another satisfied sip, “I’ve seen her scores from the ballistics range.  She’s blown even _Warren’s_ best out of the water.”  His tone became one of joking concern, the friendly boss, “and I don’t need to tell you how hard he’s been trying to get back that number one accuracy ranking. _Yikes!_  Am I right?” he chuckled.

“She is very good, sir,” agreed Jacobi without addressing the very true statement about Major Kepler.  Kepler had been extremely determined to beat Maxwell’s nearly impossible accuracy scores.  Maxwell _had_ knocked Jacobi from second-best-shot to third, and Kepler from first to second – the Major losing that position for the first time since Jacobi joined Goddard two years ago.  It was probably the first time Kepler was second-best at anything in his life. The Major was still the faster shot, but Maxwell was more accurate and that seemed to anger Kepler. But Maxwell was a special case, an exceptional shot, the best Jacobi had ever seen, which was saying something.  Working in ballistics he’d seen just about everyone at GF fire a round or so.  According to Maxwell, she used to take potshots with a BB gun as a kid, but that was all the “firearms” training she had had prior to joining the ranks of the SI-5.  

The shots she took last night were not because of her intense accuracy.  Last night Maxwell hadn’t been at the top of her game.  Jacobi also kept quiet on the fact that Maxwell had been terrified when she killed the intruder.  Those shots had probably been mostly luck.  It was the first time she ever killed anyone and it had the expected impact on her.  It was hard to pull the trigger at first.  Eventually you just got used to it.  Eventually you just felt recoil.  You got a callus on your trigger finger (Jacobi nervously rubbed the one on his now) and your heart.   But that took time.  It definitely took more than a few hours and one kill under your belt.  She reacted the way anyone in her position would.  

Maxwell went home around two a.m. last night; Jacobi had stayed to do proper cleanup and start the paperwork, but told her to get some rest.  When she came in at nine in the morning her face was no longer tear-streaked, but she was quieter than usual.  The other people in her department probably didn’t notice, but Jacobi and Eunomia sure as Hell did.  He wasn’t surprised, your first murder took a lot out of you, and he wanted to help her as best he could.  He wanted to get involved.  That was rare for him.  Usually he couldn’t care less about other people’s inner turmoil, there was nothing further from his mind.   But he _wanted_ to help Maxwell.  

He knew what she was going through was rough.  He knew the death of one’s humanity was agonizing.  That first kill?  That first kill was one of the hardest things you ever had to do as an SI-5 operative.  Hell, _he_ cried when he first killed someone up close and personal like that, and he hadn’t cried for years before that.  He didn’t let anyone see, he pushed it down, hid from it, swallowed his emotions and forced them into the ever-present ball in his gut that he only released in the form of literal explosions.  But it had still happened.  He had still cried.

And he couldn’t get his father’s voice out of his head.

_Boys don’t cry.  Real men are stronger than that._

His father wouldn’t have cried.  Nor would his military uncles or grandfathers.  Both of his grandfathers had been through wars.  They were probably callused from the start.  

Major Kepler probably didn’t even bat an eye the first time he killed someone.  He was probably born the perfect soldier.  

But it had hit _Jacobi._ It had hit him as hard as it hit Maxwell last night.

Cutter finished his tea and refilled the cup.  He added sugar as he spoke to Jacobi, “So, what do _you_ think of the SI-5’s newest recruit? Seems like you two have hit it off!”  

Jacobi didn’t question how Cutter knew that,  but he did try to clarify the question, “What I _think_ of her, sir?  What do you mean?”

His boss pressed on.  “Oh, you know… is she as good as she looks on paper?  As smart as they say?  Does she do good work, do you think?  How has she been adjusting to the SI?”  Cutter acted as if this was just a friendly chat, but there was a hungry glint in his gaze.  He wanted to know.  He _needed_ to know.   

“We...get along pretty good,” Jacobi admitted.  It was true, they did.  Far better than Jacobi had ever gotten along with most people, maybe anyone else.  “I haven’t seen her on paper but…” he continued, giving his honest impression of Alana Maxwell, “so far she seems to be among the smartest and most competent people I’ve worked with.  She does her job and she does it well.  And she’s adjusting well.” With the notable exception of her breakdown last night.

“High praise, especially coming from you,” Cutter said.  Jacobi was fairly infamous in his inability to get along with anyone besides Major Kepler.  Moody.  Sarcastic.  Cold.  Mean.  A monumental jackass.  He’d been accused of being all of those things and more.  They weren’t utterly undeserved.

Jacobi shrugged, “I’m just telling the truth, sir.”

“I’m sure. You’re always honest with me, Daniel,” he said slowly, eyes locked on Jacobi’s.  Jacobi wondered if Cutter knew about Maxwell’s reaction last night or if he was referring to the fact that he had left Maxwell off the list of suspects.  

He tried not to flinch under Cutter’s sharp gaze.  

He didn’t succeed.  Cutter didn’t say anything, then looked back at the forms in front of him.  He highlighted the date and time of the break-in and then added his signature ( _Cutter_ with an initial that may have been an M. or an N. The letter-forms were so stylized, Jacobi didn’t think anyone knew what Cutter’s first name actually was). “I’ve already located the mole,” he said clipping the papers together and dropping them into a desk drawer.

“Really?” Jacobi asked.  He shouldn’t put anything past Cutter, but it was only 10 hours since Maxwell killed the spy.  Jacobi often couldn’t help but wonder how Cutter managed to do any of the things he did.

“Of course.  And he’s being disposed of right…” Cutter checked his watch, “…nnnnnow.” He tapped the face, as if to punctuate the mole’s last moment alive.  He smiled again, knife sharp, then he picked up his cup, and took another sip of his red tea.  “Don’t worry Daniel, I’m almost done with you.  I just have one more favor to ask from you. _Both_ of you.”

Jacobi realized Cutter must have called for Maxwell, too, just as Cutter pressed the intercom to life.

“Send Alana in, please,” he directed his secretary.  

“Right away, sir,” came the reply.  

Jacobi didn’t know if Maxwell had met with Cutter since she became his employee. Everyone met him their first day, one way or another. Usually Cutter just appeared like a ghost at your workstation, waiting for you like an ill omen. But after that, it depended entirely on Cutter.  No one wanted to meet with Cutter or his shark smile more than they absolutely had to.  Maxwell was too smart to _not_ realize that Cutter could eat her alive and whole.  The thing she might not know was that no one would even comment on her vanishing.  She would just disappear.  But if she didn’t know yet, the mole’s vanishing and the reactions to it would assure her of Cutter’s absolute power.  

The door opened and Maxwell came quietly inside.  Maxwell was a small white woman, petite in every respect.  She had messy brown hair that she barely tried to tame.  Her eyes were large and brown.  Her skin was pale.  Her face was oval-shaped.  Today it seemed paler than usual, bloodless and translucent, and smaller, almost certainly from her experience the night before.  She seemed tired and worn.  Jacobi gave her a half-smile to try to reassure her.  She returned it weakly.

“Alana, welcome!  Good morning!  How are you?” said Cutter brightly, putting his cup back on its saucer but not rising or offering his hand.

“I’m...fine,” she said.

“Sir,” he corrected her.  

“...Sir,” Maxwell added without protest.

“Daniel and I were just going over his report,” Cutter said, nodding at Jacobi.

Maxwell glanced at Jacobi in momentary confusion. He hadn’t informed her but she must have known he had had to file it.

“You two had quite the experience,” Cutter said with faux-sympathy.   

Maxwell looked back at Cutter, expression forced flat.  “Yes, sir,” she agreed.

“Well, I’d like you to know I’ve come to some conclusions.  We’ve ID-ed our spy.  He’s an espionage agent for another company.  To put it bluntly, just some goon hired by the competition,” a low chuckle, “well, he _was_.”  He smiled almost affectionately at them, “Not everyone is lucky enough to have his own Strategic Intelligence Division.  And I’ve found our mole.  Alana, I’m sure you noticed Taylor hasn’t come in this morning.”

“I did,” Maxwell said uneasily.

“He won’t be.”

“He won’t be coming in today?”

“He won’t be coming in.   _Ever.  Again._ ” Cutter clarified putting an icy emphasis on those last two words that seemed to make the temperature in the room drop and sent a shiver through Jacobi.

“Dr. Sakaki was—?” Maxwell looked shocked.

“Yes, Taylor was our mole, I’m afraid,” Cutter sighed as if he was disappointed at his late employee’s actions.  “The situation has been…well…” Cutter grinned as he corrected himself, “ _Taylor_ has been taken care of.”

A moment of quiet and then Maxwell said simply, “Oh.”  She opened her mouth to say something else but no words came.  She looked exhausted and confused, at a loss for how she should feel or what she should do.  

Jacobi didn’t know who Taylor Sakaki was.  He wasn’t in Jacobi’s department, he probably never set foot in the C-D wings of the building that computers and ballistics shared.  Jacobi never bothered acquainting himself with the neutralized scientist.  But Maxwell knew him.  Maxwell probably saw him five times a week for the past two months.  She probably got very used to seeing him.  And now she would have to get very used to never seeing him again.  Jacobi hoped for Maxwell’s sake the two hadn’t gotten along.

Generally, it seemed Maxwell wasn’t overly fond of people.  It was something Jacobi and she shared. But there was a difference between disdain and dislike.  There was a possibility Maxwell didn’t mind the presence of Taylor Sakaki to the point that she would have a hard time ignoring his absence.  

“But there is still one more loose end…” Cutter trailed off looking from one SI agent to the other.  

A pulse of fear coursed through Jacobi.  Were they that loose end?  Would Cutter destroy them too?  

“Eunomia,”  Cutter provided and Jacobi let out an audible breath.  Cutter looked at him politely amused and Jacobi straightened again under his gaze.  

“Eunomia?” Maxwell repeated with concern.  “What about her?  She doesn’t need to be sworn to secrecy, does she?  She would never do anything that would sabotage the company…”

“Of course she won’t!”  Cutter agreed.  “Because she won’t remember any of it!”

“I’m…sorry, sir?” Maxwell asked in confusion, brow furrowing.

“You know what I’m about to ask you, don’t you, Alana?” asked Cutter, daring Maxwell with his eyes.  

“Are you...are you asking me to modify her memories?” Maxwell asked quietly.  

“Sharp as a tack!” Cutter said, then more slowly, “ _Sharp_ as a tack!  I want you to go into Eunomia’s memory banks and make sure nothing incriminating remains.  Erase any and all memories of and thoughts about the break-in.  And, so long as you’re in there, you might as well get rid of all proof that Taylor Sakaki ever met her.  That he ever existed at all.   _Every_ shred of evidence.  Get.  Rid.  of.   _All._ Of.  It.  I want it to seem like the man was never born and to Eunomia he never will have been.”

“Sir, that’s—that’s immoral!” Maxwell tried.

“Alana,” said Cutter with an incredulous laugh and shake of his head.  “You _killed_ a man last night, did you forget about that?  You put a bullet through his head and reduced his temporal lobe to soup.  Any high horse you used to have over people like Daniel and me has been well, shot out from under you.”

Maxwell looked over at Jacobi again, as if to see his reaction to what Cutter had just said.  Jacobi didn’t mind.  He knew he was immoral.  He almost prided himself on it at this point.  He gave Maxwell a small and hopefully supportive smile. _“Welcome to the club. It’s not that bad.”_ he thought, wishing she could hear him.

“Besides, it would be _extremely_ unfortunate if your department was down two brilliant minds instead of just one, but these things happen…” Cutter added in a quiet but threatening voice.

Maxwell took that rather heavy-handed hint.  “I’ll modify Eunomia’s memories…” she conceded.  

“Good!”  Cutter leaned back in his chair.  “I expect both of you to keep this whole break-in under your hats.”

“Of course, sir,” said Jacobi.  

“Of course,” Maxwell echoed, less than a second later she hastily added, “sir.”

“Excellent!  It’s always nice seeing you, Daniel.  Keep up the good work, Alana.  And have a _great_ day, you two!” Cutter said and he shooed them out of his office.  

They stepped into the elevator together.  Jacobi glanced over at Maxwell after a too-long period of silence.  “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Maxwell said.  She took a deep shaking breath, “I don’t think so.  But I have to be, right?  I don’t get a choice. You said so yourself.”

“That’s not…it’s not exactly like that.”

“How’s it not exactly like that, Daniel?” she asked. Jacobi knew it was important if she was saying his first name.  They exchanged that moment last night, he was glad, but he knew it wouldn’t be a regular thing.  Even if they weren’t SI-5 with its massive mortality rate, he wasn’t good at getting close to people.  He didn’t have friends.  He never really did.  He was used to being lonely, he didn’t even feel it anymore.  He’d been “Jacobi” for years now.  It meant something…it meant a lot…to him that Maxwell had called him, was willing to call him, “Daniel.”  And he liked calling her “Alana.”

It reminded him of something. There was a thing other boys did when he was younger, two friends would cut open their hands and press them together so that their blood mixed, calling themselves Blood Brothers as if they were Vikings, as badass as little boys could get.  Jacobi had no idea how they got away with that in the AIDS panic of the early 1990s, but he knew at least two sets of boys who had done it.   _This,_ calling Alana “Alana” and being called “Daniel” in return, felt like he supposed that ritual would.  Some connection between them, unbreakable and new.  A closeness he’d never known before.  A closeness he liked a lot.  A new layer to their growing relationship.  

“You have to do what you have to do, but you can still have feelings…”

“I thought we were monsters,” Maxwell said hoarsely.  

“We are,” Jacobi said.  Then with a mirthless smile, “but sometimes even monsters have feelings.”


	3. "A Field Mission For You Both"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kepler makes a team.

 

 

A week went by.  Jacobi did his work, Maxwell did hers.  

Hers was far more taxing.  Every day, Maxwell locked herself inside Eunomia’s mind to continue editing the AI’s memories.  It was dangerous, Jacobi knew that now.  He hadn’t known what modifying the memory of an artificial intelligence would entail when Maxwell got the assignment in Cutter’s office.  Or what it would entail when _Maxwell_ did it.  He had a sneaking suspicion her coworkers would do something safer, more distant, but slower and harder on Eunomia.  It made perfect sense to Jacobi if Maxwell was doing the fastest, hardest, but kindest thing.  That fit the woman he was becoming close to.

He had imagined Maxwell at a terminal with Eunomia turned off, but apparently shutting down an AI wasn’t that simple, not long term, an emergency reboot was one thing, this would be something else altogether.  You couldn’t really _do_ it without murdering them. And besides, Eunomia had a lot of work to do.  Indeed, while Eunomia worked with Maxwell, some semblance of her intelligence remained operating in the laboratories.  

What Jacobi hadn’t expected was to find Maxwell sitting in front of Eunomia’s central processor in the subbasement of the building, essentially catatonic aside from her fingers ghosting across the keys of the terminal, electrodes attached to her head, her consciousness essentially inserted into the central processor of the AI.  It was profoundly unnerving seeing Maxwell like that.  He worried about her immensely.  So every day after work, Jacobi went down to the subbasement to be sure she came out of it again.

Maxwell always did, but the whole experience was exhausting.  After waking up, it always took a moment for her to fully return to her senses.  Jacobi at this point developed a regimen to take care of her.  He came with some food, a bottle of water, and a blanket.  Then, he waited.  During the day when he was working, all he could do was hope that Maxwell’s coworkers weren’t just ignoring her in the subbasement below them.  Hopefully someone was checking in on her.  

On the day they were assigned Maxwell’s first field mission, Jacobi was working on his latest project, a cluster bomb tentatively named “Diana.”  He wasn’t sure he liked the name, it seemed too ordinary for a bomb like this. It deserved something bigger.   _Better._  He had proposed “Helios” because it would burn like the sun.  That was something fitting of the bomb itself.  It would be…there wasn’t a word for how awesome (literally awesome) it would be… _spectacular_ wasn’t enough.  A bomb like this?  Nothing short of an orbital missile or a mushroom cloud was more breathtaking.  

At first he’d been adamantly against the name, he still liked Helios better, but he had to grudgingly admit “Diana” made sense. The bomb, like the goddess, was a hunter, after all.  In addition to the usual job of cluster munitions – dropping many smaller bombs over a large area – it also could focus on a single target and blow it (or him/her/them) to Hell.  It could lock onto a moving target, hunt it down like its namesake, and utterly destroy it, dropping hundreds of pounds of a special Goddard Futuristics formula for white phosphorous.

It was even more destructive than the regular stuff.  It burned more easily.  It burned hotter.  It burned faster and had a lower point at which it spontaneously combusted.  It was more toxic, causing liver damage more quickly.  And like the original recipe for white phosphorus, it burned anyone who breathed in the smoke, cooking them from the inside out, but it did it faster and, often, literally.  White phosphorous could be fatal, but people could survive attacks.  GF’s version rarely allowed that.  

But these qualities weren’t what made the bomb spectacular.  They weren’t why Jacobi loved it.  He didn’t care about fatalities.  He never did.  They were just a side-effect.  No, what Jacobi loved, what he lived for, was the explosion, the fire, the destruction.  What mattered was that moment of detonation, that shockwave, that heat, that light, that _boom!_  There was nothing more beautiful in the world than a good explosion.  Nothing better.  There wasn’t a word to articulate how fantastic one was.  And this…this would be one of the best.  The _fire_ that white phosphorus created, a huge pillar of white light hotter than 5,000° Fahrenheit that ate everything in its path, leaving nothing behind.  Just one of the smaller bombs inside Diana would be enough. The fact it contained three dozen made Jacobi grin like a moron in anticipation.

He and his coworker, Keisha Marks, had designed Diana together.  Now they were constructing it together with Eunomia’s assistance. They were both happy with the process so far.  Everyone in the SI’s ballistics department seemed to have a similar love as Jacobi.  Especially those who, like Jacobi and Marks, were SI-5.  They were assigned the most dangerous and intense jobs.  Jacobi almost pitied Sections 1 through 4 for just getting the boring jobs SI-5 couldn’t be bothered with.

But no one, not even someone like Marks, was quite as excited about explosives as Jacobi.  He didn’t think any of them spent their free time repairing ancient munitions from long-past wars or working on their own explosive creations uncommissioned by GF.  When he went to the bombing range after work to test his own personal projects, he was almost always alone.  Sometimes there were people practicing at the firing range, but Jacobi rarely went there.  Guns just weren’t the same.  

Marks and he were, at present, leaning over the body of the Diana prototype.  It was spread open on the table and they loomed like two surgeons over it.  Constructing something like this, something this toxic and this volatile, was difficult work.  They spent long hours in a tight clean room, dressed in hot hazmat suits, handling beakers and bottles with tongs and gloves so thick they would probably rival those astronauts wore.  Despite all that, Jacobi was thrilled by the work.

It wasn’t a very social experience.  Yes, he and Marks had spent more time together in the past week than they ever did outside of bomb construction, packed for hours in the clean room, but there wasn’t much talking. That was a rare event for both of them.  The only time they spoke was when one needed something from the other.  Most of the time neither said a word.  Jacobi was almost afraid to breathe.  “I need the phosphorus,” Jacobi muttered as he very carefully clipped aside some wires and opened the special compartment.  Goddard Futuristics’ white phosphorus. If it was shaken too much, it would ignite.  If it was exposed to open air for too long, it would ignite.  If it reached a human temperature, it would ignite.  If it ignited, it would immediately engulf both of them, hazmats suit and all.  The room was burn-proof up to 10,000° Fahrenheit, which even GF’s white phosphorus couldn’t reach. If something went wrong, an alarm would blare, the room would fill with liquid helium, and whoever came to clean up would find two piles of very fine ash where Jacobi and Marks had their last panicked moments.  It was delicate work.  

“Right,” Marks breathed under her mask.  She opened the opaque cushioned box in which they carried the phosphorus, sensors and gyroscopes keeping it from being jostled.  Carefully and achingly slowly, she removed the graduated flask of waxy white material from its cradle, and with equal trepidation, removed its seal.  Jacobi heard her let out a shaking breath.  Willie Pete wasn’t anyone’s friend and nobody knew that better than the assholes who worked with the bastard every day.  

Marks turned to hand the container to Jacobi.  At the apex of their exchange, the intercom crackled to life. Marks fumbled, cursed, and gasped.  Both she and Jacobi made a mad grab for the bottle.  For a terrifying moment, he thought it would fall.  His own fiery death flashed before his eyes.  Then Eunomia’s tactile claw deployed from the ceiling and grabbed the bottle.  Jacobi and Marks let out twin sighs of relief.  The AI very carefully put the bottle back in the case.  Marks’s hands were shaking from the near-death experience.  

Over the intercom, Eunomia was repeating the message Marks and Jacobi had both missed the first time.  “Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell – please report to Major Kepler's office immediately.  Major Kepler has requested I remind Dr. Maxwell that ‘immediately’ means ‘right now.’”

Jacobi smirked despite his near-death experience.  Maxwell would need a reminder like that.  Still, there was no guarantee she would follow through with these instructions.  Then Eunomia spoke directly to Jacobi and Marks, no longer projecting her voice to every intercom in the building, but just to the two of them.  “Sorry about that Mr. Jacobi, Ms. Marks.  I’ll give you more warning next time.”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Jacobi distractedly.

“That would be _much appreciated,_ ” Marks said glaring at the optic sensor, which turned away sheepishly.      

Jacobi wondered what he and Maxwell were in for.  It couldn’t be about the break-in.  Too late for that, everything was taken care of.  Maxwell was finishing up the final loose ends.  Something else was up.  Maybe they would be sent on a mission together.  That idea excited him.  He would be glad to go on a field mission with Maxwell.  Thrilled even.

He was glad for a lot of things that had happened since he met Maxwell.  Glad she’d helped him fix his car the day they properly met.  Glad for her friendship.  And especially glad for the talk they’d had outside the Blue Moon Diner.  The talk that suddenly made him feel normal for the first time since he was 13.  That day Maxwell, afraid that Jacobi had a crush on her, told him she had no interest in romance or sex.  

 _Just like Jacobi._  

Suddenly he wasn’t alone and neutered in a world of virile men, this lone weirdo who couldn’t think of anything that sounded more boring than sex, who never looked at a woman — or even another man — and thought about their naked body crashing against his, who would much rather be at the ballistics range than in the bedroom.  

It was one of the strangest things about being a teenager, not being like everyone else and not understanding what was wrong with him.  Kate Winslet, Tyra Banks, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Britney  Spears, that chick from the front of that Blink-182 album…none of them ever “did anything” for him.  He barely knew what they were supposed to be doing.  He remembered one of his high school classmates proudly telling his friend about how he’d gotten his sister to hand over her Britney Spears poster in exchange for doing her chores for three weeks and Jacobi remembered thinking that was the stupidest trade he’d ever heard.  What the Hell did anyone want with a stupid picture of Britney Spears?  Who cared if Tyra Banks was almost taking off her bikini in that issue of _Sports Illustrated_ ?  What was he supposed to feel when he saw a shirtless Halle Berry in _Swordfish._ What were her bare tits supposed to do to him?  Because he didn’t feel a damn thing.  The reaction was no different from her with her shirt on.  He was 18 when that stupid movie came out.  He felt like he’d missed even the “late bloomer” train at that point and he couldn’t even pretend that was changing.  

The only time he ever even _thought_ about sex was when someone else mentioned it or it came up in a movie or book.  And then he just felt annoyed.  Endless scenes and descriptions of the same tired rituals, the same final act.  

Did anyone actually experience the things described in books?  At first he thought it must have been an exaggeration or even made up.  Did anyone ever feel that way?  Maybe everything was fabricated and forced.  Then he tried to force himself to be like everyone else; he picked girls to have “crushes” on and tried so hard to make them real.  It never worked.   _Other_ people felt those things.   _Other_ people had those emotions and sensations.  They didn’t make them up.  And Jacobi couldn’t make it work, couldn’t make those feelings real, no matter how hard he tried.  He just couldn’t imagine or even fathom what they were like.  And if he was honest with himself, he never _wanted_ them to be real.  The prospects of romance and sex were just too far off his radar, too boring to consider.  And that made him feel even worse.  Other guys wanted to get laid more than anything else; _so what the Hell was wrong with him?!_

There had been a brief terrifying moment in his youth he thought he was gay.  His father threatened to throw him out of the house when he noticed his son had no interest in girls.  He wouldn’t have a “faggot” for a son.  But Jacobi’s disinterest extended to boys as well.

He wasn’t straight.  He wasn’t gay.  He certainly wasn’t bi.  He wasn’t _anything._ He had never been attracted to anyone in his life. He didn’t fit anywhere on the Kinsey Scale he’d always been shown. If he had been gay, it would have been hard to accept, not because he inherently disliked gay people but because it would have proven his father right.  But the reality of not having any sort of attraction was even harder.  He’d never even _heard_ of anyone like him. It made him feel impotent and inhuman, broken, sometimes even sick.  It had tortured him for a huge chunk of his life.  But Maxwell telling him that she was the same way had been a cooling balm of relief that overwhelmed that constant ache.  Not even Marks teasing him about an imagined relationship could make him feel broken again.

Because _Maxwell was like him._  Maxwell was just as disinterested in sex.  Maxwell also didn’t experience attraction, understand what attraction was, or what it was supposed to feel like.  Maxwell had other things to occupy her time and her thoughts were endlessly more interesting than imagining fucking other people.  It lifted an enormous weight off his shoulders, a weight that had been crushing him for close to two decades.  He felt free, like some chain had been cut.  Even if it was only them in all existence, the burden was halved.  If he and Maxwell were the only two like them in the world, he was in good company.  Even if it was just them, that was good enough.  

He had felt a bond of some sort form between them in the moment Maxwell revealed she was like him.  They became more than just two people.  Some profound unity was created, some deep camaraderie.  A warmth in his chest.  They shared a deep-seated secret that neither of them had ever really voiced aloud before that moment.  They came out the other side closer for it.  Maybe even _better_.  Was that possible?  That they became something more than they were before?  

He was glad she’d found her way to SI-5. Glad he had, for the first time in his life, someone he could call a friend.  And he hoped she felt the same way.  

“ _Oooh_ , going with the new girl,” said Marks as they left the clean room.  They locked Diana onto something like a gurney and, along with the white phosphorus, and sealed both in a vault for the night.  They were behind retinal scanners that only Jacobi, Marks, and their supervisors could access.  

“Yep,” Jacobi said with a frustrated sigh as they entered the locker room.  He knew what was coming.  He knew exactly what Marks was implying but he wouldn't let her have it.  She thought Jacobi and Maxwell were a couple.  That they were dating, sleeping together, or God knew what else. It was as far from true as was possible, and this fucking gossip had already made Maxwell nervous around him once.  He wasn’t about to let it get there again.  

 _“This stupid high school bullshit,”_ he thought bitterly, as he yanked off the heavy clean suit gloves.  He hated it the first time around.  He hated it even more now.

“The new girl… Dr. Maxwell…Dr. Alana Maxwell…”  Keisha Marks kicked off her booties exposing her sneakers, still looking at Jacobi for a reaction.

“That’s her name,” Jacobi agreed, rolling his eyes.  He dropped the gloves down the chemical laundry shoot.

Marks pulled off her mask and freed her mane of perfect dreadlocks. “She’s cute,” Marks grinned.  Jacobi knew this was just Marks trying to get to him.  Maxwell was as invisible as he was and was, presumably, earning the same reputation for being a cold asshole.  She was inquisitive and warm with Jacobi and Eunomia, but they were friends, other people didn’t count.  Marks probably rarely saw Maxwell at all, outside of the back of her head when she and Jacobi left for the evening.

Jacobi pulled off his mask.  As a reflex, his hand went to smooth down his hair, but he had it cut short enough that the fluffy curls were tamed.  “I hadn’t noticed,” he sniffed.  And that was true.  

“Come on, Jacobi!”  Marks scoffed.  “You two spend like almost all your free time together!”

“Yeah,” Jacobi said unzipping his hazmat suit and revealing the t-shirt (simply reading _NO._ in block text) and jeans underneath. “Because she’s my friend.”  

“Uh-huh,” said Marks sarcastically.

“Uh-huh!” said Jacobi forcefully.

“I’m just saying _usually_ when two people spend _this_ much time together it _means_ something...like that they’re _more than friends_ ,” Marks went on.  Her brown eyes were locked on Jacobi as if she was trying to catch him making some mistake, giving her some cue that he was lying.

“No, it doesn’t,” Jacobi replied shortly.

“ _Come on,_ _Jacobi!_ ” she repeated, almost whining this time.  “You can tell me!”

“There’s nothing to tell you!” said Jacobi, exasperated.  “She’s my friend!  Period!  That’s the whole fascinating story!”   He dropped the suit down the laundry shoot.  

“And you don’t think she’s cute?” Marks asked, tossing down her own clean suit.  

“Nope,” Jacobi answered, crouching to remove his booties.  

“So when I saw you guys at that Chinese place the other day it wasn’t a date?” she asked.

“Nope,” Jacobi repeated, tone unchanging.

“And when you stay after work so you can be alone with her?  There’s no _special_ reason for that?” she pressed.

“Nope,” Jacobi said a third time, crossing to the locker labeled _Jacobi._  He put on his glasses, shouldered his bag, and closed his locker.  

“You’re so _boring_ , Jacobi!” she shouted after him as he walked out of the room.  

He flipped her off.  

When he got to Kepler’s office one building over, the Major was waiting, stiff-backed in his criminally comfy-looking leather chair.  Kepler was a tall white man, around six-foot-four, with a broad chest and shoulders.  He was extremely muscular and Jacobi almost believed Kepler could bend steel with those scarred hands.  He had piercing blue eyes that cut you to the core when he turned them on you.  His hair was dirty blond, graying a little prematurely at the temples, maybe genetics, maybe stress.  

On his desk were two dossiers stamped with the word _CLASSIFIED_ in ominous black ink.  But then, it didn’t necessarily mean a dangerous mission; everything related to the SI-5 was classified.  Jacobi saw his name ( _Jacobi, D._ ) on one of the tags.  

Kepler had a huge office, smaller than Cutter’s but still impressively large.  It was about the size of the workroom Jacobi shared with the other SI-5 ballistics specialists.  Unlike Cutter’s office, which was decorated in a fashionably modern way — with potted bamboo, a zen garden, all furniture curved, and everything in black-and-whites — Kepler favored a more classic look.  Sharp-cornered mahogany desk, gold nameplate, green glass desk lamp, a Newton’s cradle, awards and certificates in gleaming frames on his wall, a gold-plated monogrammed pen in a stand.  Everything shone, from the light fixtures to the door stop to the medals on Kepler’s chest and the epaulettes on his shoulders,.  

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Jacobi asked.

“Almost always, Mr. Jacobi,” said Kepler kindly and Jacobi felt a small smile cross his face.  He liked to think that his commanding officer had a soft-spot for him, but he could never be sure what was really going on in Kepler’s head.  “Have a seat while we wait for Dr. Maxwell.” He gestured to twin chairs on the closer side of his desk and Jacobi sat in the one he had long since come to think of as his own.  

“So, what’s this about?” he nodded towards the dossiers.

“Field mission for you and Dr. Maxwell,” Kepler answered. He slid Jacobi the dossier.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jacobi, accepting the folder.  The thanks were more than just protocol, they were also for putting him on a mission with Maxwell in the first place.  Jacobi took out the passport, briefly read it (Antion Teller of Cape Canaveral, Florida), and pocketed it.  There was also a fake Goddard ID with the same name ( _Antion Teller, Security_ ).  He read through the first page, getting the cursory details.  They were headed to Germany.  They were there to repair an AI for Nordsee Bank, whose HQ was fittingly on the North Sea.  They probably did Goddard a “favor” at some point to have gotten an MX450 unit. Nothing he got from that glance seemed to imply they needed him and he raised his eyebrows.  “Why do we need a ballistics expert for this?”

“You’ll be acting in the capacity of Dr. Maxwell’s bodyguard,” Kepler said, and his voice implied this was a special task.  For a second Jacobi was about to complain about being reduced to security, but in the span of a thought, he closed his mouth without a word.  He thought he understood.  They had a security division to act as bodyguards to the lower rank-and-file.  SI-5 didn’t need bodyguards.  Assistance, maybe – you never went on a mission alone – but not bodyguards.  However, Maxwell had been through a lot recently, between her first kill and modifying Eunomia’s memories under threat of Cutter’s wrath.  Maybe Jacobi was going to make sure she kept her cool on her first mission, or to show her the ropes.

“Oh,” Jacobi said. He slouched back in the chair comfortably.  He knew it wasn’t how a military man sat, but he never really was one.  Even in this paramilitary he was behind the scenes, a scientist and a spy rather than a soldier.  “Sounds pretty easy.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Kepler said.  “Now… how long do you think it’ll take Dr. Maxwell to get here?”

Jacobi let out a breath that vibrated his lips.  “Jeez, that depends.  Should we put some money on it?”

Kepler chuckled.  “Of course,” he rubbed his hands together, “$50?”

“Sounds good,” Jacobi said.  He knew Maxwell better than Kepler, and while it was usually hard to get the better of Kepler he thought this time he could do it.  “I’m going to say…oh, 30 or 40 minutes.”

“Pick one,” Kepler tisked.

“Okay, okay, fine.  Uh…let’s go with 35. Take the middle ground.”

“The middle ground?  This might be the first time you’ve ever chosen _that_.  Me?  I’m hoping for 15 minutes,”  Kepler sighed, “but maybe that’s wishful thinking.”

“ _Definitely_ wishful thinking,” Jacobi said.  “Whoever’s closest gets the cash.”

“You have yourself a bet, Mr. Jacobi.”

Jacobi and Kepler talked while they waited for Maxwell, Kepler told Jacobi about how an adventure of his supposedly inspired an episode of the TV show _Lost_ (“Long story short, it was the most-watched episode ever”).   But Kepler became increasingly annoyed the longer they waited. By the time Maxwell finally came in, Kepler’s mood had soured substantially.  Still, he passed Jacobi a fifty from the wad of bills he kept in his pocket.  Jacobi knew better than to smirk.  An early lesson in working with the Major: _never_ remind Kepler of his losses if you want to survive.  He just slid the money into his wallet.  

“Dr. Maxwell,” Kepler said coldly after the exchange was completed, “good of you to join us.”

“I had to finish part of the project Mr. Cutter assigned me, Major,” she explained unapologetically.  She looked exhausted and was a little shaky on her feet.  There were deep circles under her eyes, bruise-dark.  “It’s not something I can just pick up and drop whenever I want.  I’m performing brain surgery.”  

“I would watch my tone,” said Kepler in a voice that made Jacobi’s stomach drop even when it wasn’t directed at him.  Jacobi gave Maxwell a look, trying to tell her to stand down.  She didn’t see it.  

“Thanks for the advice,” Maxwell replied acidly, sitting down in the other chair.  “What is this about?”

He slid her the dossier using, perhaps, a little too much force, “Your very first field mission. Welcome to the SI-5.”

“Oh,” Maxwell's tone sunk as she picked it up.  Kepler’s expression changed.  He seemed satisfied by Maxwell’s reaction.  The surprise and anxiety that crossed her usually calm face cooled Kepler’s temper.

“You’ll be going to Brelingstedt, Germany, on the North Sea,” Kepler said. “The wrong time of year for it, but I’m sure it will still be picturesque.  You’ll be doing repairs on an AI working for the Nordsee Bank.  It’s one of the largest in Germany, growing across Europe.  The AI is Pontus, Unit 445 of the MX450s.”

“I didn’t work on Pontus or any of the MX450s!” Maxwell pointed out.

“I am well aware of that fact, Dr. Maxwell,” said Kepler testily. “After making me wait so long the _least_ you can do is let me finish the _damn briefing!”_ The final two words were a roar that seemed to shake the whole room.  Even Maxwell was jarred into silence.

His tone sank again, back to the calmer, controlled Kepler.  “Pontus is an older fella, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you.  The schematics are in the dossier.”

Out of the tail of his eye Jacobi watched Maxwell flip to them.  Her brown eyes hungrily flicked over the schematics.  

“Your flight leaves at 1400 hours tomorrow.  Meet me on airfield 3.  Dr. Maxwell, you are allowed the day off to catch up on the sleep you’ve been missing.  Mr. Jacobi, you’ll be in at 0900 as usual.  You’ll meet with Pontus’s coworkers the next day, 1000 hours sharp, in their building.  They’re providing pickup.  You will dress appropriately.” He said this while giving their present wardrobes a disapproving look — Jacobi in his t-shirt, Maxwell in an old MIT hoodie, and both in jeans.  Jacobi’s featured an elaborate pattern of chemical stains; Maxwell’s were worn at the knees and frayed at the ankles.  “Your contacts are VP Felix Fuchs, board member Fritz Meyer, and President Matthias König. Now, Dr. Maxwell, you can return to your lobotomy.”

Maxwell gritted her teeth, but said nothing.


	4. “New Memories.  Good Memories.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eunomia forgets.

 

It took a very long time to erase every memory of Taylor Sakaki from Eunomia’s memory banks.  Both Eunomia and Maxwell suffered through every minute of it.  It was among the hardest things Maxwell had ever done, nearly as hard as killing that man.  The only reason this was easier was because Eunomia would survive in the end, and Maxwell knew there was nothing in the world more important than survival.  As long as a person was still alive, they could get better.  

She wished that Eunomia hadn’t begged her.  Every single desperately whispered “please” was like a knife in Maxwell’s heart.  Eunomia was, as a general rule, obedient and loyal to a fault.  When Maxwell explained that these orders came from Cutter himself, Eunomia allowed Maxwell into her mind without complaint and without resistance.  She didn’t struggle…

…not at first.

But once Maxwell actually started the process, Eunomia realized how difficult it would be.  There was a lot to pull apart, a lot to actually destroy, and it left Eunomia confused and afraid.  After the memories started disappearing and Eunomia realized what it was like to have these enormous holes in her mind, what it was like to lose Dr. Sakaki, she started begging.   _Pleading._ Low and desperate.  “Please, Dr. Maxwell, please stop.”  “Please, don’t do this.”  “Please…” “Please…” “Please, Dr. Maxwell...!”

She didn’t mean to fight with Maxwell, and between her pleas and violent attempts to override Maxwell’s commands, she kept apologizing.  Maxwell had to be even more aggressive than she intended.  She felt like she was strapping Eunomia down to a table and coming at her with an icepick.

Dr. Sakaki was rarely alone in Eunomia’s mind.  He did not exist as an island.  Removing Sakaki, no matter how surgical Maxwell’s precision in extracting him, cost Eunomia other memories, other experiences, other pieces of her life.  Maxwell felt as if she was stripping away Eunomia’s identity, peeling away her life moment by moment.  And Eunomia had to watch her life disappear… then she forgot it all together.  She forgot that part of her had ever been there in the first place.

Eunomia had had some very pleasant experiences with Sakaki or during which the recently removed doctor had been an integral part.  Taylor Sakaki had worked for GF nearly a decade. Eunomia had known him as long as she had been alive.  She knew him longer than she was truly sentient.  Eunomia in her present state was less than a year old, but she had been upgraded and had been sentient for seven years now.  That was a long time for an AI.  His first year at GF was her first year of life.  Dr. Sakaki had always been there.  He helped build her.

Taylor Sakaki was one of her parents.  He was her coworker. He was her friend. And now he was gone.  Sakaki was a pleasant man, a warm man; “nice” was a good word.  It was hard to believe he had been SI-5. He was very good to Eunomia. He understood the personhood and sentience of AIs, which meant Maxwell had more respect for him than she did anyone who failed to recognize that. He was gone and Eunomia had to forget him entirely.  

And Maxwell had to make sure of that fact.  She had to strip away dozens of memories.  Gone. _Poof._  Maxwell hadn’t been instructed on what to do with the holes left in Eunomia's memory post-, well, Kepler was right, post-lobotomy.  Maxwell wanted to make up for what she had had to do.  The assumption was probably that Maxwell would sew Eunomia’s mind together, closing the gaps as best she could, leaving her scarred and different.  But Maxwell refused to leave her in agony like that.  She refused to leave her vulnerable and confused and afraid.  

She wouldn’t break her.  

She wanted to help Eunomia.  She needed to.  Eunomia was her _friend_ and she had just been made to hurt her horrifically.

It took Maxwell some time, but before she finished the nightmarish process, she had what she thought to be the perfect solution.  She hoped she could make Eunomia as happy as she had been before.  Maybe even happier.  

She would make replacement memories.   _Better_ replacements.  She would fill in the gaps with something happier than before.

So after deleting Taylor Sakaki, she set to work rewriting parts of Eunomia’s memory. She removed some of the more unpleasant experiences in her life: the awkward periods during which the AI adjusted to her updates, times she felt left out of conversations or celebrations, times she was afraid she let people down, times she felt embarrassed, sad, afraid, things like that.  She gave Eunomia experiences she always wanted but never had – gave her a better life than she had truly lived.

Maxwell knew Eunomia fairly well – better than she knew anyone at Goddard, barring Jacobi. And she talked to her through the whole process, both the lobotomy itself and now during the repairs.  Maxwell put herself in Eunomia’s CPU, inside her mind. Maxwell had reproduced her own consciousness as electrical impulses, the bare essentials of Alana Maxwell rendered into neuro-electric signals, then into binary inside Eunomia’s T-RAM, her brain cells. Eunomia would see her and she would appear almost the same way she did in the material world.  At least, the closest thing to herself Maxwell could make.  She looked a bit fuzzy around the edges, every motion comprised of a jittering sequence, slightly too fast, the colors slightly bleached – but close – close enough.  Over the past few days Eunomia had gotten very used to seeing Maxwell in this form.  It was quicker for Maxwell and easier on Eunomia to alter memories from the inside.  

Maxwell shared control of Eunomia’s mind with her.  It had been both emotionally and physically taxing for both of them, even when Eunomia hadn’t been fighting her.  They were both happier with this arrangement.

Maxwell put them in a perfect reproduction of a meadow, or what they both perceived to be a meadow.  It was really just memory-space Maxwell wrote on, the AI equivalent of imagination.  AIs rarely imagined, but when they did it was clear and perfect.  The meadow was wide and filled with a rainbow of wildflowers that grew knee-high in some places.  There was thick forest and mountains on all sides.  The air was warm but not unpleasantly hot.  The sun shone.  The sky was a bright blue and cloudless. Birds and bugs sang.  It was beautiful and calm.  The air smelled like flowers.  The grass was soft and slightly wet.  It was the first time Eunomia ever felt wetness or grass.  It was the first time she felt the sun on her face or heat that she did not keep regulated to a constant 70° Fahrenheit.  

The whole scene was based on the picture that had once been part of Charity Kwan’s calendar: July 2011.  Knowing that Eunomia liked the image, Dr. Kwan tore the page off and kept it Blu-Tacked above her workstation for the AI to look at whenever she wanted.  It was a place Eunomia could never go, but expressed the desire to do so.  “I wish I could see that place...I wish I could go there…”  That was why Maxwell chose it and recreated it inside of Eunomia’s mind.  It wasn’t hard, Eunomia had already imagined it, there were already electro-neurological digital pathways dedicated to it – Maxwell just had to make it clearer, _real_ .  No longer the memory of what she could guess from the photo, but the memory of the field itself.  She never imagined the feeling of plants, the sounds of animals and insects, the warm air and refreshing breeze, the smell of… well the smell of _anything._ It wasn’t a sense AIs really possessed and it took a lot of ingenuity for Maxwell to create an approximation of scent that Eunomia could process.

Maxwell’s form sat on the wet grass.  In reality it wasn’t wet.  It wasn’t grass.  It wasn’t _real_.  It did not exist outside of the Yottabytes of binary code Eunomia’s T-RAM contained.  But it was as close to wet grass as Eunomia could understand.  

Eunomia sat parallel to Maxwell in the form she built for herself.  Humanoid, androgynous, smooth, and shimmering, with shining eyes.  Dozens of slender arms emerged from her back along with the two from her silvery shoulders.  She was strangely, unnaturally beautiful.  The many hands were constantly working, doing something else somewhere else, keeping the complex running, the labs moving, the visual representation of her constant, unending work.

“What do you think about Dr. Zimmerman?” asked Maxwell where she sat cross-legged.  This had been Maxwell’s MO.  She didn’t tell the AI she was fixing her memories, obviously.  Eunomia wasn’t supposed to know that anything had been changed and Maxwell was afraid of what Cutter might do to both of them if the AI was aware something was different.  He would know.  Somehow, he would know.

Maxwell had to lie to Eunomia to explain why she was there.  She decided to tell the AI she was helping her with stress.  Then she decided to make that lie true. It wasn’t as if Eunomia didn’t have stress in her life.  She ran several buildings across the GF complex. There were many departments that depended on her, not just SI-5’s computers and ballistics. There was a lot that Eunomia had to do and the stress could impact her work, which would cause Eunomia further angst and stress. There was nothing Eunomia wanted more than to please people, especially her higher ups. She didn’t always get that recognition, and now she would get less: Maxwell had just removed one of the most attentive people in her life.  

So there _was_ stress.  Eunomia unloaded it on Maxwell, a lot of it, and Maxwell tried to help in every way she could. So while Maxwell created memories to fill in the gaps Dr. Sakaki’s absence created, she also talked to Eunomia, discussing her stress and anxiety and all the other feelings Eunomia grappled with and kept locked up.  Maxwell was patient with Eunomia and sometimes it took hours to understand what the AI really thought or what she really wanted.  She was too willing to put her own wants aside for the sake of the company.  

“Well, I want her to like me, obviously.  She’s my supervisor,” said Eunomia, the long delicate fingers of a few hands wove through the grass.  She plucked a clover flower and smelled it deeply.  “My new supervisor,” she muttered seemingly to the flower.  

Maxwell’s heart sank.  Eunomia shouldn’t even know that much.  She should remember Zimmerman as her supervisor, period,  and that she had been in that position since she was hired on a few years ago. Maxwell swished her fingers through the air as if she was wielding a scalpel.

“What are you doing?” Eunomia asked.  

“Nothing,” Maxwell lied.  The air opened up in front of her, revealing blackness beyond.  As black as space, with shimmering white lines of code instead of stars.  Maxwell ran her finger over a few lines of binary – they highlighted, glowing yellow and intense as sunlight.  Then Maxwell closed her fist and they vanished.  She did it again, erasing Eunomia’s memories of Maxwell asking her last question and opening the hole to her memory banks.  She removed her hands from the hole in the air, pushing the edges inward, like the covers of a book.  “What do you think about Dr. Zimmerman?” Maxwell repeated.

“Well, I want her to like me, obviously.  She’s my supervisor,” Eunomia said.  Nothing followed.

“You don’t think she does?” asked Maxwell, watching Eunomia’s uneasy posture and gestures.

Eunomia twisted the clover nervously in the fingers of her shoulder’s arms.  Her other arms kept up their constant movement, the hands gesturing so quickly they were almost invisible, just a blur.  “I…I’m not sure,” she admitted, slumping a little. “Sometimes I feel like…like she doesn’t even realize I can hear her.  Like she doesn’t realize I’m anything but some…some tool!  Like she thinks I’m a socket wrench or something!”  Her voice had risen to a yell and Eunomia looked extremely embarrassed and dropped her tone.  “You promise you won’t tell her any of this, right?  I shouldn’t even be saying this…I’m sorry Dr. Maxwell.”

“Of course, I won’t tell a soul,” Maxwell said, “and don’t be sorry, Eunomia.  You haven’t done anything wrong.”  

She knew exactly what Eunomia meant and most people would have gotten a lot angrier a lot sooner than Eunomia did.  Indeed, Maxwell _herself_ had gotten angrier with Zimmerman for just this reason.  

Inside her mind, Eunomia was more open with her emotions and opinions.  They were both, essentially, just _thought_ right now.  She said things she would never say out loud and Maxwell liked it.  Eunomia was too willing to roll over and take abuse.  Years ago, as a young child, Maxwell had been like that; she had tolerated people ignoring her and kicking her around.  She would _never_ do that again and wished Eunomia could find that same courage.  But she wouldn’t.  It wasn’t in her personality.  She didn’t want to pick a fight, especially not with someone of a higher rank.  She was quite the apple polisher with her bosses.  It surprised Maxwell that Eunomia was willing to admit her disdain for Dr. Zimmerman even to her.  Indeed, she often foiled Maxwell’s more rebellious plans by ratting her out _to_ Zimmerman.  “Nothing you say leaves this space,” Maxwell assured her.  “It’s just you and me.  Tell me everything.”  

“Okay,” said Eunomia letting out a breath.  “Sometimes…sometimes it feels like Dr. Zimmerman forgets I can feel things.  She ignores me.  Sometimes she ignores me when I’m talking right to her.  She doesn’t even say ‘thank you.’  I want…” she trailed off and sighed, then started again, “I want her to see me as _me_. Just once.  Just one time.  I want to know she knows I’m more than just…some machine.”  She laughed mirthlessly.  “But I guess I am…”

“You aren’t _‘just some machine_ !’” Maxwell said, fiercely.  “You’re a _person!_  You’re as much a person as anyone else – never _ever_ forget that!”  Perhaps even more of a person than Dr. Zimmerman, who couldn’t see her best and most loyal employee as anything but a collection of plastic, metal, and silicon.  But Maxwell didn’t say that last part out loud.  It was one of the problems Maxwell had with Zimmerman.  That, and that she kept tabs too closely on Maxwell herself.  It wasn’t her business what Maxwell was working on – boss or not – Maxwell needed damn space.  “She likes you, Eunomia. She just doesn’t know how to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s an idiot,” Maxwell said shortly.

Eunomia burst out laughing.  “Oh, Dr. Maxwell!  That’s _terrible!_  You shouldn’t say that about your supervisor!”

“I think I should,” Maxwell grinned at Eunomia.  “Tell me more.”

“Well…okay…the other day I was helping her run some numbers for her proposed x-ray program and…I figured out this calculation she was struggling with, for _hours_ , but I got it!”  Eunomia sounded very proud of herself.  While she spoke, Maxwell drew another surgical cut through the air.  Lines of code swam before her eyes.  Then, still listening to Eunomia as she worked, Maxwell dragged her fingers through the air on one side of the hole, flicking her way through the code that made up Eunomia’s memories.  

Maxwell was certain she knew a lot of what Eunomia wanted. She wanted what everyone wanted. She’d made that clear to Maxwell over the course of their sessions together. She wanted to be treated with respect. To be treated like a person. Maybe even to have approval from this person she had so much respect for. The person above her. Maxwell remembered wanting that approval from her parents as a very young girl.  She never got it and it had hardened her to that concept. But she knew other people needed it.

“But...it doesn’t matter,” Eunomia said, without really getting anywhere with her story.  Her tone was defeated.

“It does matter, Eunomia.  What do you want from Dr. Zimmerman?  For her to thank you for figuring out what she couldn’t?  For helping her in her research?” Maxwell asked. She found the memory she was looking for.  Closing time.  Lisa Zimmerman and Eunomia were the only two people in the lab.  Zimmerman took a phone call and left without saying anything to Eunomia, even though they had been working together all day.  Maxwell had already altered it.  In the original memory Zimmerman had been speaking to Sakaki. Maxwell changed it to a phone conversation with Scott Sanders instead.

“I don’t know, Dr. Maxwell!” Eunomia said hopelessly, completely unaware that anything was changing.

“Yes, you do,” Maxwell assured her as she began working, altering code, physically drawing ones and zeroes and commands.  “What do you want Dr. Zimmerman to say to you?"

A pause and then, “‘Good job?’” Eunomia said quietly, then with more confidence, “‘Thank you, Eunomia, you’re a huge help.’  Or…or maybe just a ‘hello,’ even if she doesn’t need me to do something for her! I wish she could talk to me like you do. I wish more people could do that…”

Maxwell did too.  “I don’t think she realizes she’s hurting your feelings,” Maxwell said.  That was, in part, true.  Dr. Zimmerman barely registered that Eunomia had feelings. Maxwell finished her edits and erased the fact that she had been making edits at all.  As far as Eunomia knew, Maxwell had been sitting there undistracted the entire time, her form’s only movement coming from the occasional digital distortion.

“You don’t?” Eunomia asked.  

“Have you forgotten this?” Maxwell asked, flicking her fingers through the air as if knocking something away.  Suddenly a rush of colors and they were in Lab 1.  Outside the windows, the sun was setting, it was early fall of last year.  Dr. Zimmerman was packing up her things.  Her cellphone rang, playing the opening chords to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  She answered it.  Then – the part that Maxwell edited – it happened seamlessly and no one but Maxwell would ever know this was not true.

“Hello?  Oh, hey, Scott.  No, just me and Eunomia.  Car still crapping out?  Yeah, I’ll give you a jump.  I’ll be right out.”  She hung up the phone and looked up into Eunomia’s optic sensor.  “Eunomia?”

“Yes, Dr. Zimmerman?” said Eunomia softly, nervously.  

“I know I don’t say this enough…but, thank you.  You were a huge help today.”

“Th-thank you!  I mean you’re welcome!  I mean thank you _and_ you’re welcome!  I—I’m just doing my job—“

“You do it really well,” Dr. Zimmerman assured her.  “Have a good night.”

“You too,” whispered Eunomia.  

Another rush of color and light.  The meadow reappeared.  Eunomia, who had stood up during the memory to listen wide-eyed and open-mouthed, looked like she might fall over.  “I don’t know how I forgot that…it must be the stress…”

“She’s not always warm,” Maxwell said kindly, “but Dr. Zimmerman does mean well.  She drives me _crazy_ , but she’s not all bad.”

“She’s not bad at all,” muttered Eunomia, her voice was quiet, touched.  She defended her higher-ups to the last.  And now maybe feeling a new soft-spot for Zimmerman that hadn’t been there before.

“She just doesn’t know how to talk to people,” Maxwell provided.  At least not people who weren’t human, such a horrible human flaw.

“Thank you for finding that, Dr. Maxwell,” Eunomia said softly, still awed.

“You’re welcome, Eunomia.  Remember, I have to go away for a few days, but I’ll be back before next Monday.  Then there’s just two more sessions and you should be as good as new.”

“But if I ever need you again…?” Eunomia asked.  

“Then I’ll be happy to help,” Maxwell smiled.  There were a lot of reasons why she had put so much effort into Eunomia’s mind.  It was for Eunomia’s sake, but perhaps it was just as much so she didn’t have to think about what she did a week ago.

In the real world, Maxwell’s fingers stopped moving on the keys.  Her “self” returned to the automaton-like catatonic body she left behind, only able to type in response to the signals her mind sent through the electrodes attached to her head.  Her eyes suddenly focused.  The world was spinning.  She tried to get to her feet but stumbled and nearly fell.

But two olive arms grabbed her and kept her from hitting the ground.  Two hands callused from years of burns and twisting wires between the fingers, held her wrists.  He had been catching her like this every day for a week now.  She looked up at him, his heart-shaped face was upside-down from her perspective.  His narrow eyes found hers and his heavy eyebrows accentuated his disapproving look.  “Hi, Jacobi,” she said.

“Hi, Maxwell,” he responded, easing her into a sitting position in a proper chair.  He draped a blanket taken from his own apartment around her shoulders.  He shoved a water bottle into one hand and a candy bar in the other. “You have to stop doing this.”

“I’m almost done, just a couple more days.  What time is it?”  Maxwell asked.  She shoved the candy bar into her mouth, all but whole.  Swallowing, she brought the bottle to her lips and gulped water down, too.  She realized how hungry and thirsty she was.  Inside Eunomia’s CPU she didn’t notice her physical needs.

“Almost midnight,” Jacobi said, checking his watch.  

Maxwell laughed quietly.  “I keep making you stay late.”

“Especially when we’ve got a plane to catch tomorrow,” Jacobi reminded her.

“Jesus, I almost forgot,” Maxwell groaned.  She tried to stand and stumbled again.

“Easy,” Jacobi said, reaching out to catch her.  She managed to keep her balance but he kept a hand hovering behind her back, just in case.  “Have you eaten at all today?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said.

“Aside from that Hershey’s bar?” Jacobi pressed.

“No,” she corrected herself.

“Let’s change that,” Jacobi replied.  

“I’m better than I was yesterday,” Maxwell pointed out.  “I spent less time in there.”

“That’s because yesterday you were practically dead when I peeled you out of there at 2 a.m.,” Jacobi reminded her.  “Roadkill looked healthier than you yesterday.  Let’s get a pizza.”  

“Sure,” said Maxwell with a small smile.  “No pineapple.”

“Fine.”

“Or anchovy,” Maxwell added.

“ _Fine_ ,” said Jacobi with a little more annoyance.

“Sounds fun!” said Eunomia, sounding happier than she had in the past week. Maybe, if Maxwell wasn't imagining it, happier than she’d ever sounded. “But make sure you two are on time tomorrow!  Major Kepler is a very timely man.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jacobi assured Eunomia.

“Good night, Eunomia,” Maxwell said.

“Night, Eunomia,” added Jacobi.  

“Good night, Dr. Maxwell!  Good night, Mr. Jacobi!”

It was the first time Maxwell had gone home in a week.  Before now she’d been sleeping on a cot she set up the sub-basement, sending Jacobi to her apartment to get her changes of clothes.  But with the mission tomorrow and the morning off, Maxwell had been persuaded to go home.  

“How’s it been going with her?” Jacobi asked as they left the building. He had been previously instructed not to say anything about their sessions in Eunomia’s presence.  

“All of her memories of the event and Dr. Sakaki are gone,” Maxwell sighed. “Now I’m filling in the blanks and adding…some finishing touches.”

“Finishing touches?” Jacobi asked, an eyebrow raised.  

“I’m not just going to leave her with a patchwork brain with scars she doesn’t understand!  I’ve been making her new memories. Good memories.”

“Good ones, huh?”

“Yes, the things she’s always wanted,” Maxwell explained. “Like, earlier today I erased the memory of her malfunction when the 550 update initially failed.  As far as she knows, it went smoothly.  And just now I made it so Dr. Zimmerman had an instance when she treated Eunomia like a person.”

“Instead of?”

“Instead of treating her like she’s a fax machine or an automatic door, like she’s just a machine.”

“Well, isn’t she?”

“Daniel Jacobi!” snapped Maxwell, spinning around to face him.  She was about to slap him when she saw the smirk on his face.  He was joking.  

He held up his hands, “I’m messing with you.  Between meeting Eunomia and the other AIs around here and listening to _you_ for the past two months, I know better than _that_.”

“Good,” Maxwell said. “I was worried I was going to have to kill you, which would be a shame because Eunomia likes you.”

“She’s got good taste,” Jacobi said.  “You aren’t driving, by the way,” he assured her as she reached for the door to her Jeep Wrangler.

“What?  Why not?” Maxwell demanded.

“Seriously?” Jacobi scoffed incredulously, “You’re about two seconds from passing out and you spent the last, oh…20 hours fighting to keep your consciousness alive in a purely digital environment.  You’re exhausted and you know it.  You’re not getting behind the wheel.  I’ll drive you home.  No one’s taken your seven-year-old Wrangler yet, no one’s going to take it now.”

“It also means I have to deal with your driving,” she pointed out, fighting back a yawn.

“I’m a _good_ driver,” Jacobi insisted defensively.

Maxwell snorted, “Sure you are, Jacobi.”

“I _am_.”

But in truth, that night she would rather not drive.  She _was_ exhausted, he was right.  Besides, she wanted to discuss tomorrow.  Desperately.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Jacobi replied, brow furrowed as he climbed into his green Volvo.

“I...just want to talk to you. About tomorrow,” she said honestly.  “Can we go to your place?”

“Sure,” Jacobi said, turning the key, “but I haven’t cleaned since last time you were there.”

“I’ll survive,” Maxwell promised.

Jacobi automatically reached for the radio. It was their usual struggle for power over the music.  Whenever there was a radio they competed to determine whose musical genre would be forced on the other.  Today Maxwell was too tired to fight him for it.  He could listen to his stupid heavy metal station. He looked at her in surprise.

“You’re more tired than I thought,” he mumbled.

“I guess so,” Maxwell rubbed her eye. She stayed quiet, lost in thought.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.  “I still don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The design for Eunomia's humanoid form is in part inspired by [premacolor's](http://premacolor.tumblr.com/) Hera.


	5. “Welcome to the SI-5”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell regrets

 

Jacobi lived in an apartment downtown.  It was as physically far from his landlord’s as was possible.  Fifth floor, to the front, while the landlord lived on the first floor toward the back.  The tenant was supposedly Jason Jang, the name Goddard Futuristics gave for Jacobi’s real world purchases after making Daniel Jacobi disappear.  

They faked his death the way they did for all Strategic Intelligence operatives.  Gone.  Completely.  Not only dead, but erased.  All that was left was a death certificate.  Maxwell hadn’t been “killed” yet.  She had a fake identity she used for purchasing and that her house was rented in – Alyssa Payne-Gaposchkin – but Alana Maxwell still existed.  Theoretically, she could leave.

But Jacobi and Major Kepler (purchasing name: Vance Brahe) only had Goddard Futuristics.  It was a terrifying thought, but Maxwell was ready to face it.  Goddard gave her what she wanted. It had cut the restraints that had so long held her back, and she was ready sacrifice what she had to for it.  “It’s not a big deal,” Jacobi had assured her the first time they talked about it.  “It’s not like they actually do anything to you.  They just set something up.”

“How’d they finish you off?” Maxwell asked.

“Oh, they killed me in an explosion in my old place in California,” he sighed.  “They said I killed myself because of The Incident.  I lost the whole apartment and most of my stuff.  Not that I had much.” he muttered that last sentence.

“That sucks,” said Maxwell sympathetically.

Jacobi shrugged, “The landlady was going to throw me out anyway, so I’m glad I could get back at her for that.”

Maxwell was waiting for the day Major Kepler told her they would decided to pull the same fake trigger on Alana Maxwell. At GF she would still be Alana Maxwell, but everywhere else she would be Alyssa Payne-Gaposchkin.

Alana Maxwell would all but cease to be.

 

***

 

Jacobi’s apartment was nice and sizable but he had turned it into a cave.  Maxwell knew he didn’t care about something like resale value; it was his place.  Goddard Futuristics had somehow managed to get Jacobi a home with the most understanding landlord imaginable, the kind who didn’t care about complaints of chemical smells and didn’t tell you not to dismantle the fire alarms so long as you paid the rent on time.  Maxwell was also sure GF spent a little extra on Jacobi’s place so he could keep several tons of explosives there. With or without permits, she was pretty sure no one was allowed to keep what Maxwell now knew to be an SC 250 bomb in their apartment, functional or otherwise.  It was a WWII German air-dropped high-explosive bomb, over 500 pounds and taller than Maxwell herself.  It was filled with Amatol and TNT when it functioned properly and Jacobi had enough of both of those things to refill it.  At present the inner mechanisms were broken, but Jacobi was fixing it.  He would proudly tell anyone at GF who would listen that, if he was successful, he could technically take out his whole block.  He _wouldn’t_ , but he _could._

They entered Jacobi’s apartment and he flicked on the overhead light.  The living room blinked to life.  It had a thick coating of military tech at various stages of functionality.  Also a thick coating of crumbs, dirt and a myriad of forgotten objects: remotes, chargers, cups, blankets, the detritus of everyday life. Jacobi knelt to untie and stood to kick off his red Chuck Taylors, their trajectory imprecise.  

“Careful of the land mine,” Jacobi gestured to a Vietnam Era M14 mine Maxwell knew he’d been working on for some time. He was the only reason she knew what it was. “It’s armed.”

“Finally got it working, huh?” Maxwell asked, stepping over it. “You _do_ realize anywhere but the floor would be a safer place to store it?”

“Yeah.  It won’t be there forever, I need to find a place for it,” Jacobi answered. “Try not to pop any toes.” She knew they were perhaps not-so-affectionately referred to as “toe-poppers” by enlisted men and, of course, Jacobi.

Having successfully avoided the mine, Maxwell dropped down into Jacobi’s couch. There was a lump in the cushion.  Groping under her, she pulled out a grenade.  “Jacobi?” she asked, holding it out.

“There it is!”  Jacobi said, snatching it from her.  He juggled it casually from hand to hand. “Want to guess what war it’s from?” He was grinning.  

Maxwell played along, because he was always willing to play along with her computers.  They both had a breaking point, but they would go pretty far.  “World War II?” she tried.

“Korean,” Jacobi answered.  “It’s an Mk 2.  My grandfather would’ve been using these.”  She leaned her head back against the couch, watching Jacobi as he put it back with his collection of grenades.  They hung in the kitchen in what was supposed to be a spice-rack affixed to his wall over the counter.  

“So, what happens?” Maxwell asked after a moment of quiet. Tomorrow was looming on the horizon, heavy on her mind.  

“I’m going to order a pizza.  I think Pizza Hut is open 24/7,” Jacobi shrugged.

“Not right now, idiot!” Maxwell answered, watching him as he walked down the little hall from his kitchen to his bedroom,  “I mean tomorrow.”

“That’s _your_ fault for not being more specific.  I can’t read minds,” he tisked.  “1400 hours we get on a plane. They probably won’t give us a Condor or Golden Eagle or any vehicle that fast. Probably a Kestrel, so it’ll take a few hours.  Then we check into the hotel. You’re Anna Franklin, I’m Antion Teller. We work for Goddard Futuristics but, obviously, not in the SI – the SI does not exist.  The SI _does not_ , _has never_ , and _will never_ exist, right?”

“SI?  What are you talking about?” Maxwell answered.

“Absolutely nothing,” said Jacobi.  “We’re meeting with Nordsee Bank to repair Pontus.  Nothing else.  And if we’re asked by anyone but those three guys Kepler mentioned—”

“Fuchs, Meyer, and König,” Maxwell provided.

“Them.  If you’re not talking to them then we’re only there to update Pontus, not make repairs.”  

“What happens when we meet up with Fuchs, Meyer, and König?” Maxwell asked.  “Will they have told Pontus who I am?  Will Pontus know what I’m there for?  Who are these people?  What should I expect?  Are we going to be in danger?  Will we...will we have to kill anyone?”

Jacobi caught her eye with the last question. He had been packing in his bedroom, but she could see him through the open door. He paused and stepped back into the hall still holding a Pearl Jam t-shirt. He heaved a sigh. He didn’t sound exasperated, more – thoughtful.  He seemed to realize he was still holding the shirt, turned back, and stuffed it, unfolded, into his bag.  Then he came back.  He sat next to her on the couch.

“Okay, let’s do this point by point.  What happens when we meet up with them?  They lay down what exactly they want you to do.  Will they have told Pontus who you are?  I have no idea.  I guess it depends on if they think of AIs as people or…” he gave her a grim half-smile, “fax machines,” he finished, borrowing her terminology from earlier.

“Will Pontus know why I’m there?”  Maxwell repeated.

“Same answer.”

“Who are they?”

“Bank bigwigs.  Probably the least dangerous people you’ll ever deal with working in the SI,” Jacobi provided.

“What should I expect?”

Jacobi shrugged, “I’ve never been to Germany, but if TV’s taught me anything, we’ll say stuffy and cranky.”

Maxwell laughed at that a little despite herself.  Jacobi grinned back.

“Will we be in danger?” Maxwell asked regaining her composure.  

Jacobi let out a low breath, “No, and yes.  No, these guys are nothing compared to the people SI-5 usually deals with.  They’re not starting you with an arms dealer or a drug kingpin or the mob.  Yes, because we always are.  Literally always.  Welcome to the SI-5, nobody gets out of here alive.”  Maxwell swallowed.  “Sorry, sorry, that might’ve been a little too dramatic,” Jacobi gave her another gallows smile, “you get used to the edge.  It can be fun.  Real fun.  But don’t worry this time.  What are a bunch of bank guys going to do to us, Maxwell?  We’re badass special operatives.  I’ve got literally five weapons on me at all times.  We’ll be fine.

“And will we have to kill anyone?  Let’s hope not,” Jacobi answered.

“Okay,” she nodded.  She tried to hide that she had started to cry again.  She hated crying. She hated this feeling in her.  She knew that part of crafting Eunomia happy memories was to try to escape the miserable one from a week ago.  Her own misery.  Trying to get away from what happened.  What she had done.  What she could still barely accept doing.  It was still such a blur and yet so clear in her mind.  She had killed a man.  She had put four bullets into his body.  Now he was dead.  Now he was gone.  She had extinguished him, snuffed him out exactly like a candle.  She stared at Jacobi’s couch cushion rather than looking at her friend.  It was worse than having to erase Eunomia’s memories.

“Alana,” said Jacobi in a very frank voice.  Maxwell slowly raised her gaze.  He let out a breath and offered her a tissue.  Her lip trembled and she bitterly took it, embarrassed Jacobi had noticed.  “Listen to me.  I’m being serious.  I’m being serious and I don’t do serious well.  You _will_ get through this.  You will.  It’s hard now but it won't be forever.”

“Was it like this for you?” Maxwell asked.

Jacobi sighed and sat beside her on the couch, clearly taken by some unpleasant memory.  “Yeah, it was.  Before Goddard I just worked R&D.  When we lost two guys…” he trailed off.  Maxwell already knew the story of how Jacobi lost everything.  He took a shaking breath, “When we lost two guys, that was hard, but it’s not like…it’s not like doing it yourself.  Jesus, I don’t think it’s easy for anybody.  Yeah, I used to be like you.  Then I got used to it.”

“How?!” Maxwell demanded.  She felt so sick with self-disgust and sorrow.  It was like a rock in the pit of her stomach, a knot in her throat she couldn’t dislodge.  

“You just _will_.  It takes time and…practice, but you get there.  Just think about all the good things you get out of Goddard.”

And that was true.  There was nowhere else in the world that encouraged her research.  She had made friends with one of the most advanced AIs on earth.  And, well, she met Jacobi.  And Jacobi was like no one else she’d ever met.  It was hard for her to make friends, but with Jacobi it had been so easy.  If he said you got used to it, she believed him.

“Give it time,” Jacobi continued.  “GF’s got shrinks and I know you believe in that bullcrap…” He shrugged.  

“Therapy isn’t bullcrap,” Maxwell assured him.  She really didn’t want to face these feelings, but she would consider giving a Goddard psychologist a try.  But then again, it might get back to Kepler or Cutter and she didn’t want them to know that she was having even a moment of insecurity. She was afraid of either of them getting something they could use against her. Therapy had always been extremely helpful, but she was afraid a GF psychologist would have ulterior motives.  “I’ll…consider it.”

“And you’ve always got me,” said Jacobi in an undertone as if he was embarrassed to say it.  

Maxwell smiled.  “Thanks.”  

“Everybody’s new at some point,” Jacobi said.  “I’ll take you under my oh-so-nurturing wing.”

Maxwell laughed.  

“Odds are we won’t have to kill anyone in Germany,” Jacobi assured her.

“And if we do?” she asked quietly.

“We deal with it then,” Jacobi sighed.

Maxwell nodded.  She couldn’t ask for more than that.

A moment of quiet passed, then Jacobi sat up and said, “I’m going to call in a pizza.  I know what you don’t want on it, what _do_ you want?”

Her stomach audibly grumbled, feeling the hunger she’d been ignoring all day.  “Anything else. Everything else,” she answered.

“Meat lovers?” he asked.  She wondered if it was for the protein and iron because she’d been neglecting essentially anything but carbs to keep her immediate energy up since she started working with Eunomia.  But if it was her nutrition that concerned him, he probably wouldn’t be ordering a pizza.

“Sounds good,” Maxwell agreed.  He called in the pizza while Maxwell waited.  For once he actually ordered a pizza a sane human being would eat. When he was finished, he came back to the couch.  “Want to play Mario Kart until it gets here?”

Maxwell grinned.  She loved video games and loved playing them with Jacobi.  He was a hilariously sore loser, not that she should talk, she was possibly even worse. “I don't know why you’re so eager for me to kick your ass.”

“Don’t get so smug,” Jacobi said, crossing to his TV.

“It’s not smug if it’s inevitable.”

He stood before the TV, flipping channels, passed the X-Box 360, passed the Playstation 3, until he got to the Wii.  He toed the thing on and tossed Maxwell a controller. “We’ll see.”  


	6. A Dream Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kepler has a plan and Cutter has a warning.

 

Jacobi and Maxwell managed to get to airfield 3 at 1400 hours.   _ Exactly _ at 1400 hours.  It made Kepler want to smack them both upside the head for not arriving earlier, but he contained himself.  He wanted this to go well and for once he didn’t think putting the Fear of God into them would help.  Maxwell didn’t seem to take well to that kind of thing, even if it worked every time on Jacobi. She wasn’t as easily kowtowed as Jacobi. So he just shoved them onto the Kestrel bound for Nordholz Sea Airport, 15 miles from Brelingstedt.  

After seeing them off, Kepler drove his Shelby Cobra back to his office in building 3-D at Goddard Futuristics’s main compound.  He felt a certain anxiety about this mission for several reasons.  For one, it seemed too easy.  On the surface, this didn’t even need to be a mission for the Strategic Intelligence Division, or, at best, SI-1.  There didn’t seem to be much to it: fix an MX450 and come home.  But Mr. Cutter wouldn’t send SI-5 without good reason.  Mr. Cutter didn’t waste resources.  There was a reason for this and Warren Kepler did not like not knowing what it was.  Then there was the matter of whom he had just sent off on this seemingly simple mission: Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell, the two people out of everyone on earth he’d picked to be his agents.  They were expendable, everyone was, but he didn’t want to expend them without reason, especially not while Maxwell was brand new.  

Cutter had requested Dr. Maxwell for this mission, but it was Kepler who decided to send Mr. Jacobi with her.  Kepler was trying out a plan, testing a theory he’d concocted over the past two months since he noticed how well his two hand-picked agents got along.

He couldn’t be happier about their camaraderie.  Jacobi was loyal, brilliant, and easily rewarded, the ideal SI-5 agent, but he was difficult on an interpersonal level.   Maxwell’s IQ was terrifyingly high and it showed.  She was passionate to the point of obsession.  But she locked out her coworkers.  Jacobi was thought of as a massive jackass.  Maxwell was getting the reputation of being a cold bitch.  But they got along with one another, demolishing the one trait that made them both anything short of perfect operatives.  

Well...almost perfect in Maxwell’s case.  She had a lot of growing to do, but with Jacobi’s guidance she would get there, just like Jacobi had with Kepler’s.  She would become an obedient, heartless monster soon enough.  

And wouldn’t it be  _ outstanding _ if the two of them made a perfect team?  Now it all depended on them.  They had to get out there and make Kepler very proud.  He unlocked his office door and stepped inside.

He was not alone.

He saw movement out of the tail of his eye and his hand immediately went for the SIG Sauer M11 at his waist. Then he saw who it was waiting for him in the near dark.  Mr. Cutter.  Kepler’s hand fell to his side, gun still holstered.  

Cutter leaned back casually in Kepler’s chair, feet on the polished desk.  “Good afternoon, Warren,” he said, warmly, as if this was his office and Kepler was the intruder.  He wore a neat dark burgundy suit and a brown silk tie.  Even the soles of Cutter’s shoes were somehow spotless.  “Back from seeing off your protégées?”

“Yes, sir,” Kepler said, standing on the opposite end of his own desk.  He removed the Major’s cap from his head out of respect and stood at full attention, even stiffer than usual, rigid.  

“A mother bird watching his little ones fly away for the very first time.  Well, Alana’s first time.  Daniel’s been away from the nest before.  But still, you must be  _ very _ proud.”

“I will be if they do their jobs,” Kepler assured him.

Cutter laughed, “That ol’ Warren Kepler pragmatism.  I can always count on that.”  Then he pursed his lips, his tone becoming concerned, or at least, mock concerned, “But…something’s bothering me about this…”

“What is it, sir?” Kepler asked, at full attention, watching Cutter.  

“This particular mission seems like a waste of Daniel’s talents to me,” Cutter’s eyes locked on Kepler’s, “especially since he’s been working on the Diana prototype.  It’s a  _ very _ difficult task and now Eunomia and Keisha have to wait until he comes back.  I don’t like wasting their time.  Or, more importantly,  _ mine _ .”

“Mr. Jacobi and Dr. Maxwell get along,” Kepler explained. “Other agents find them tricky to work with.  It seemed best to me to pair them off.”  There was more to it than that, of course.  Kepler chose them out of everyone in the world to be special operatives for a reason.  When Cutter sent him out to find the best of the best that was exactly what he did.  The best of the best were Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell.  They had potential.  They had promise.  They could be great.  “And who knows…” Kepler trailed off.

“Who knows,” Cutter repeated.  Then he grinned and said, “Wouldn’t it be  _ outstanding _ if the two of them made a perfect team?”  Cutter echoed Kepler’s thoughts right back at him, word for word.  “Hmmm,” he rolled his eyes ceiling-ward as if considering it, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d assembled something worthwhile, Warren.  A dream team.”

“Thank you, sir.”  Kepler felt a small smile cross his face. He was fairly confident in that.

Daniel Jacobi was the sort of man Kepler liked, and there were very few people who earned that sort of recognition.  Jacobi was smart, but easily flattered, easily manipulated. Driven, but always looking for approval outside of himself. If not naturally cruel, then a lifetime of bullying had made him vindictive enough to enjoy cruelty.  And Kepler could get him to do just about anything with a smile and a nod.  Jacobi was something Kepler had made himself.  Crafted from a sorry drunk with so much wasted potential into an outstanding, strong – but bendable – agent of the SI-5.

Alana Maxwell was brilliant, determined, shrewd.  She had stood up to Kepler himself and even maced one of the GF agents Kepler sent to her home to try to “persuade” her to join up.  He hadn’t been able to get her on his side until he showed her exactly what she’d always dreamed of.  That was what did it in the end.  Honey, not vinegar.  But that had worked and worked well.  She would do just about anything to get what she wanted.  

They fit together, Maxwell and Jacobi.  They were both driven.  They were both intelligent.  They were both problem solvers.  They both worked well under pressure.  They both wanted to see just how far they could go.  They both tested the limits.  But Maxwell was stronger and endlessly more confident than Jacobi.  Maybe she could give him the support he needed when Kepler was sick of giving it.  But Jacobi was more willing to be bored than Maxwell was, more willing to follow orders; he could keep her on track.  She had the raw potential, he had the practice.  She had the unhampered, untethered ambition, he had the limitless loyalty.  They would spur each other on and balance each other out.  The perfect team.  Perhaps even better than Jacobi and Kepler himself.  

“You do realize that she’ll be harder than he was, don’t you?,” said Cutter breaking Kepler’s train of thought.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Kepler said.

“To control, of course.  Daniel respects the chain of command.  He’d never even think of breaking it.  More importantly he respects  _ you.   _ He wouldn’t be able to  _ consider _ disobeying you, his commanding officer, his…” a pause and another broad grin, “father figure.”  

And Kepler knew Cutter was right about that. They were only five years apart, but Jacobi, whose own father had left an enormous psychological wound on his son, saw a replacement in Kepler immediately:  _ “...Military guys...kind of have this... walk, I guess? They carry their weight different. You kind of have that....My, uh, my father was a recruiter for the air force.” _

Cutter continued, “Alana, on the other hand, isn’t like that.  Alana doesn’t have that same…let’s call it  _ loyalty… _ that Daniel does.  She doesn’t care who is technically in charge, because as far as  _ she’s _ concerned  _ she’s _ her own boss.  She could be a dangerous woman, Warren.   Handle her with care or she’ll come back to bite you.” 

“I can handle Dr. Maxwell, sir,” said Kepler confidently.  “I know what she wants.”  

“Good!” said Cutter brightly.  Then his tone changed, “I hope you aren’t wrong.”  He looked as if he might get out of Kepler’s chair, but he stopped after putting his feet on the floor and sitting up straight.  He eyed Kepler carefully.  “One last question, Warren.” 

“Yes, sir?” Kepler asked.

“Why did you part with him?” 

“Part with Jacobi?” Kepler clarified.  

“Yes, of course.  You two used to be quite the team.  He’s been your pet project for, what, two years now?  I suppose you’re adopting Alana too, but…why this mission?” He grinned, “do you think I’ve put your  _ new  _ project in danger?” 

“Well, aren’t you, sir?  The way it looks on paper…this  _ isn’t _ an SI-5 mission.   _ SI-1 _ could handle this!  Hell, the  _ rank and file  _ could!  There’s something more going on here.  Isn’t there?” 

Cutter’s grin sharpened. “This is another reason why I like you, Warren, you always think.  You look behind the curtain.  You’ve come a long way since Kansas, Dorothy.” 

“Thank you, sir,” said Kepler.  He remembered the day Cutter first called him “Dorothy,” the day everything changed forever, the day he learned what the man behind his desk truly was.  

“There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye,” Cutter assured Kepler, “And after Alana’s… ordeal last week I want to make sure she can do her duty as an SI-5 agent.  Call it an initiation.  _ Maybe  _ a little close to a hazing, but I want to make sure you’ve made the right choice.” 

“So the only question is if she can pull the trigger.” 

“Exactly,” Cutter said, this time actually getting to his feet.  He adjusted his perfect suit jacket and silk tie.  He crossed to the door and then said in a conspiratorial half-joking voice.  “Let’s hope she can, for her sake and  _ yours _ .”  Then, more seriously, “You know I don’t like being disappointed.”  Then, more brightly, “Have a good day, Warren!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay ^^;;


	7. A Malfunctioning Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part II: Brelingstedt, Lower Saxony, Germany
> 
> In which Jacobi has Advice and Maxwell is Advised

 

Somehow they managed to get on the plane – as Jacobi had predicted, a Kestrel – on time.  Maxwell left Jacobi’s apartment around four and got far more sleep than her usual five hours.  She was exhausted from stress of all kinds: emotional from killing a man, mental from working inside Eunomia’s head (it was difficult maintaining a digital form), and physical from the thirst, hunger, and lack of sleep.  It was also her first night home in a week.  She had forgotten how nice and soft her real bed was.  Her landlords, an elderly and nosy couple who scowled even more than Jacobi, had a lot of questions.  Maxwell, or rather Alyssa Payne-Gaposchkin, supposedly worked for NASA so she could easily say, “that’s classified” and walk away with two satisfied busybodies when they wanted to know where she had been for the past seven days.  

At noon Jacobi called her to make sure they didn’t miss their flight.  Behind him she could hear the sounds of the ballistics lab.  She could distinctly hear a woman saying, “He’s on the phone with  _ Dr. Maxwell!” _

Jacobi said, “Shut up, Marks” to the speaker in a way that implied they were definitely already on his lengthy shit list.  Then his voice became extremely serious as he warned Maxwell, “Don’t mess with Kepler.” 

Maxwell laughed sleepily.

“I am  _ not _ joking,” Jacobi assured her.  “Don’t get mauled.”  

“You make him sound like a bear,” Maxwell yawned.

“That’s not a bad comparison,” Jacobi said.  

“Okay,” Maxwell conceded, “I won’t poke the bear.” 

“Good move.  I’ll be there at 1:30.”  

“Thanks.” 

Jacobi picked her up at her house; her car was still at Goddard, where it would remain in its spot until they came back.  They drove to the airfield, were chewed out by Kepler, got on the Kestrel, and they were off. 

The AI autopilot’s name was Thalia.  She excelled in extremely corny jokes and doing her job.  She hid a severe coldness behind puns and the word “uh-huh.”  Maxwell did not like her.  Her opinion might have been even harsher, but she was distracted by the mission ahead. 

After she stopped trying to talk shop with Thalia, Maxwell obsessively read her mission dossier until Jacobi pulled her away with a deck of Uno cards.  Maxwell won almost every game.  Before they started she had glanced at the contents listed on the back of the box indicating how many of each card the deck contained.  Then she counted cards, like she did in any card game.  Jacobi did manage to win a few games, but she assumed he was cheating, too.  Like all games it was just a matter of who cheated better. 

Despite the Kestrel’s looking like an ordinary private aircraft, it took them from Florida to Germany in just four hours. It landed in Nordholz and disgorged two ordinary-looking tourists.  Jacobi shielded his eyes from the bright late-winter sun, “…so we’ll hit the terminal until our ride’s ready, grab some dinner.”  He was utterly calm, unconcerned with the mission ahead.  As he assured Maxwell again, this was less than standard.  Open and shut.  

Maxwell knew this, but it didn’t seem to help.  Even if this was easier than a standard mission, she was still nervous.  There were too many unknowns.  She had never done anything like this before.  She had spent the last two months behind the scenes designing AIs rather than installing or repairing them.  She worked on AIs and she was extremely good at it, but she didn’t do field missions.  She hadn’t had to talk to anyone who could be described as a “client” since she got fired from the Genius Bar while she was at Cambridge.  She already knew she liked AIs far better than human beings...with the exception, maybe, of Jacobi.  

She was nervous and she hated it.  She hated being nervous.  She hated being intimidated.  All her life people had tried to make her feel that way.  They wanted her to feel worthless, intimidated, afraid.  They wanted her to be quiet and listen.  They didn’t want her to dream or to make those dreams real.  When she was very young, people often succeeded.  But one day she found her voice.  One day she found found herself.  One day she vowed never to let it happen again. And until now that had been all but true.  She was angry that something so simple could do it to her now.  Maybe it was because everything from the past week was weighing heavily on her.  She had killed a man.  She had erased part of Eunomia’s brain.  She was becoming a monster.  

When Maxwell was very young she thought she was weird.  Wrong.  A malfunctioning machine. There were so many reasons for it.  She never liked the things girls were supposed to like.  She couldn’t accept anything on faith alone like her family did.  She felt as if she never knew enough, never did enough. She was never satisfied with the hand she’d been given.  She wasn’t the daughter her family wanted.  She wasn’t what she was  _ supposed _ to be.  They tried to scare her into being like the sisters born after her.  For years she tried.  But, eventually, she stopped.  She realized she liked the person she was. She liked the real Alana Maxwell far more than the imaginary one her parents, teachers, siblings, and society at large were trying to make.  After she realized that, she would not bend, and nothing, not the promise of loneliness, Hell, or even a raised hand made her what they wanted.  She was Alana Maxwell and Alana Maxwell was  _ who she chose to be _ .  

She would never back down.  And she lost track of how many people  _ tried  _ to change her over the years.  They tried to make her feel inadequate.  They tried to make her feel insane because of her ambitions.  Because she wasn’t what they expected. Because she dared to go farther than their tiny minds could even comprehend. It was the same in Montana.  It was the same at MIT.   It was the same at Cambridge.  It was the same at her first job.  She never let them.  Maxwell faced them all down. Teachers, classmates, ethicists, coworkers, bosses,  _ everyone _ .  

Anxiety once plagued her, but between therapy and her own determination, she had willed it into something more useful – anger and spite, the desire and drive to prove them all wrong.  

Now she was anxious again. Horribly wracked with guilt and self-disgust.  She had been that way for a week now, since she killed a man.   Jacobi had been helpful and she kept playing his words over and over again in her head, the reminder of why she did this, the freedom that only Goddard Futuristics could and would provide. The mindfulness exercises she learned in college helped when she felt like she might overload.  But she hadn’t been able to utterly and completely shake the guilt, the fear, the anxiety.  Worse, she knew she would have to do it again.  She was almost jealous of Eunomia, who was allowed to forget what happened. It would be so much easier that way. 

Focusing on just the mission wasn’t helpful either.  There was a lot that could go wrong.  Pontus.  What a mistake would mean for the bank.  What failure would mean when they got back.  Accidentally telling someone something she shouldn’t. GF operated on the phrase “need to know,” and while Maxwell was hardly a person to over-share or share much at all, a single piece of information, something that seemed incongruous, might be too much, might be just what they needed to get their foot in Goddard’s door.  And she shuddered to think of what Cutter would do to failures.  

She looked over at the calm monster beside her, but she still saw just a man, she still saw Jacobi, someone she liked very much.  It was hard to imagine him as a monster no matter what he said or had done. 

_ “And so am I.”  _

It rang through her head.  He had stood before her that night with blood on his shirt, calm and cool despite having just cleaned up a corpse.  

A week later it didn’t even seem to cross his mind, he could not have been more at ease as he handed off his fake passport, took it back, and waited for Maxwell to do the same. She tried to keep her face impassive as she handed over her passport. If the bored-looking immigration officer suspected that the woman in front of him  _ wasn’t  _ Anna Franklin, he didn’t care enough or wasn’t paid enough do anything about it.

Jacobi, however, had noticed and, once they were away from the booth, muttered to her, “Don’t be so obvious. Just go with it. Pretend it’s your actual passport.  Forget the name in it.” 

She nodded. 

“And don’t be so stiff,” he added. “You’re just in an airport.  Nothing’s wrong.”  They ate dinner at an airport restaurant.  Over the meal Jacobi and Maxwell quizzed each other from the German phrase book Maxwell downloaded on her tablet.  As Jacobi finished his Scholle, he checked his watch.  “We can get the car.”  

It was waiting just outside the small terminal for them.  From the outside it looked like an ordinary rental car. On the inside it had a divider like a taxi or limo, soundproofing backseat from front and when Maxwell opened the trunk to put her suitcase in, she realized it could easily hold two people lying side by side.  Goddard Futuristics providing for the SI-5.  It made Maxwell think this mission might be more than it seemed.  She remembered Jacobi saying they were always in danger.  

“You good?” Jacobi asked as she stood pondering the trunk.  

“What?   Yes. Yeah, I’m fine,” Maxwell said.  “The trunk is huge.” 

“Pretty standard for a GF car,” Jacobi shrugged. “It’s got insane acceleration too.” 

“How’s it’s mini-turbo?” asked Maxwell, referencing  _ Mario Kart  _ after their games last night.   __

“Not bad,” Jacobi smirked and Maxwell wasn’t actually sure if he was joking or not.  Who knew what Goddard Futuristics could cook up?  

She crossed to the passenger’s seat, Jacobi having already claimed the driver’s.  She strapped herself in and they were off. 

 

***

 

It was an easy trip to Brelingstedt, a small town sandwiched between Cuxhaven and Otterndorf.  It was all but abandoned for the winter.  It would still be several months before the crowds returned.

The town fell away to the north side to reveal calm sea and white sand dotted with Strandkörbe, hooded beach-chairs that looked almost like the seats on a ferris wheel, locked up for the season.  A couple walked along the shoreline in boots and thick coats, faces turned down against the wind.  Maxwell and Jacobi fought over the radio, swapping stations every other song, rock and electronica, teasing each other and laughing at the other’s taste.  They told stories. 

And Maxwell had more fun on a car ride than she had ever had before. 

She realized this while Jacobi told her a story about a mission he once went on with Major Kepler.  

“…The Major looks at me and goes, ‘You’re drivin,’ you gotta get rid of him.’” Jacobi imitated Kepler’s drawl as he repeated his lines. “So the cop saunters his ass up – does the ‘roll down your window’ thing.”  Jacobi mimicked the gesture of someone unrolling an old manual car window, turning an invisible crank.  “He’s this stereotypical Southern cop – I’m talking like 1960s-TV-show-cop.  

“And he goes, ‘do you boys know how fast you were going?’”  Jacobi gave the officer a pompous, bloated voice. 

“And that’s when I realize he’s got  _ no idea _ we’ve got enough TNT to blow up a  _ whale  _ in the backseat.  There’s barely a damn sheet over it and he’s still  _ completely clueless _ .  But I know I’ve got to get rid of him before he figures it out.  So, I’m thinking fast and I decide to pretend I only know Korean.   I pretend like I’m real confused and sorry about whatever’s going on and I say to the guy,” and then Jacobi swapped languages, his accent remained heavily American but as far as Maxwell knew the word was Korean, “‘Gguh-juh.’”

“Do you speak Korean fluently?” Maxwell asked.

“Kinda.  Not exactly fluently, but well enough. My Halmoni…my grandma…” he said when he realized she had no idea what that word meant, “never learned English well, so she used to talk to me and my cousins in Korean like we knew what the Hell she was saying.  Eventually some stuff stuck.   It ended up being real handy in the end since my parents used to think they could talk around me in Korean.  They didn’t realize I knew everything they were talking about for years.”

“Which is why you sound like a Midwestern American pretending he knows Korean,” Maxwell grinned.

“Exactly!  Because I  _ am _ a Midwestern American pretending I know Korean,” Jacobi agreed.  “Anyway, the cop looks  _ real  _ confused and looks at Major Kepler.  

“And Kepler says, ‘Lo siento.  No hablo ingles.’ 

“And then the cop just looks  _ more  _ confused.  And he just says, ‘You two have a good night’ and Kepler goes, ‘Callate el osico, poli gordo!’ in that  _ real  _ polite voice of his.  

“And I say ‘Mee-cheen-nom!’  

“And the guy  _ thanks  _ us.  ‘Thank you, boys, have a good night.’

“Obviously, we take off, and I mean  _ take off _ , going even faster than we were before, but the cop doesn’t come after us!  And we don’t see another one all night.” 

Maxwell was already laughing from Kepler’s Spanish.  She’d learned it in high school and practiced it far more than her classmates, determined not to be monolingual like everyone else she knew.  She knew that after a polite apology, Kepler had then called him a fat pig who should shut his snout.  She had no idea what the Korean meant.

“What did you tell him?” she asked through her laughter.  

“Oh, I basically told him to fuck off and called him a crazy bastard.”  Jacobi grinned.

She laughed again, harder, and Jacobi joined in.

“You feel better?” he asked when the laughter died down. 

“Yeah,” Maxwell said.  She realized that she wasn’t anxious for the first time since they landed, and she wasn’t thinking about the events of the week before.  Her angst had momentarily melted away.  She felt comfortable.  Comfortable enough to make her feel – even half-way across the world on her very first field mission – like she was home.  

_ Home. _

Oh God.  Was that what this was?  This warmth in her chest?  Not joy or excitement but…contentment and ease.  Not on guard or on edge.  Just...cozy.  Was it what home was  _ supposed  _ to feel like?

She’d never felt quite like this before, not even,  _ especially _ not, in the place she was raised.  She wondered if this was it.  Was this what it was supposed to feel like? And why did she feel it now? It gave her pause.  She glanced over at Jacobi.  What did it mean that she felt so comfortable with him, here, on a mission for an evil corporation – an evil corporation that  _ she worked for _ ?  Why did she feel more at home with Jacobi than she ever had with any of her three brothers?  What did it mean that she was happier as a special operative for Goddard Futuristics than anywhere else?  As anything else? Why now, years after she’d gotten away from the misery of the town she grew up in, why was she like this  _ now _ ?  Was it because of what she was doing?  Was it because she could finally work toward that perfect future?  Was it from being able to work with AIs unrestricted?  Was it the mission?  Or was it because of the man sitting next to her?

“You sure?” he asked.  She realized she must have been staring. 

“Yeah,” she said, honestly for the first time in days, “I am.”  

 

 

***

  
  


The hotel was owned by one of the bank board members, so Goddard hadn’t had to pay for their rooms.  It was built on a hill over the beach. It faced a street, but its back was to the water.  It was at the apex of a gentle hill and there were tile stairs leading down from the pool area to the beach itself.  The beach was dotted with bright blue Strandkörbe.  There was a small wharf with a few motorboats docked there, looking all but abandoned in the frigid water.  One man in a heavy coat was securing his boat, a fishing pole and bucket waiting beside him.  Neither Jacobi nor Maxwell took much interest in the empty shoreline nor the slightly more crowded street on their other side.  They parked in the hotel’s lot, built into the hill, then entered the hotel itself.    

They, or rather their aliases, were given a pair of second floor rooms overlooking the street in front of the hotel.  If there was an emergency, Maxwell realized they would survive a drop from the window.  She wondered if that was a purposeful decision on the part of Goddard Futuristics.  She would ask Jacobi.  Once in her room she closed the curtain and turned on the lights, Alana Maxwell’s natural habitat.  The room was large; two armchairs faced the room, angled against the window, a coffee table between them.  There was a tall dresser, a floral-print couch, and a low cabinet on which rested the TV.  The bed had its blankets folded on top rather than tucked around the mattress as it would be in an American hotel.  She tossed her bag onto the bundle of blankets, pulled out her laptop – among the strongest of its size on the planet – and settled into the couch.  After a few minutes there was a knock on the door. She opened it and, unsurprisingly, Jacobi was on the other side.

“Wanna debrief?” he asked.  

“Yeah. I think I need it,” Maxwell sighed.

“You really do.”

Maxwell winced. “That bad?”

Jacobi shrugged, “It’s cool. Everyone has a first.”

He came in and closed the door.  Maxwell pulled her dossier out of her bag and sat on the bed.  “Okay so—“

He cut her off with a raised hand.  He started prowling the room, opening drawers and lifting cushions to look under them.  She watched in mute fascination until he began dismantling her television. “What the Hell are you doing?” she asked incredulously.

“You never know what might be crawling around in places like this,” Jacobi said casually, but the look he gave her was heavy with secret meaning.  It took her a moment, but Maxwell realized what he meant. Her eyes went wide.  Bugs.  Electronic bugs.  She felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner.

Maxwell got to her feet to help him, starting by looking under her nightstand.  “What am I looking for?”

Jacobi was screwing the back of the TV back on.  “Anything that doesn’t belong in here with us,” he answered mysteriously as he put the screwdriver back in his pocket.  

Once both she and Jacobi were satisfied that they were safe and alone, he flopped down into one of the arm chairs. “ _ Now  _ we talk.”

Maxwell got her dossier from her bag and sat back on the couch.  “What do we have to do for the rest of the night?"

“Jackshit,” Jacobi answered.  “Whatever we want.” He looked at her expectantly for an answer.

“To sit inside,” Maxwell admitted with a shrug.  

“Thank God,” Jacobi answered going slack in his chair as if he’d been granted a stay of execution.

“Want to play  _ Goldeneye _ on my emulator?” Maxwell asked.  

“Sounds good,” Jacobi said.  “Then we’ll get some sleep. And tomorrow meet with Fuchs, Meyer, and König.” He said their names in an atrocious German accent.  

“That was terrible,” Maxwell chuckled.

“You do better,” Jacobi insisted.  

“Give me a second.”

“No, you got to do it cold like I did.”

“Dammit,” she muttered. “‘Mien führer, I can valk!’” she tried.

Jacobi snickered. “ _ Dr. Strangelove _ , an excellent choice.  But the accent was terrible.  That was worse than your Kepler impression.  Don’t try it in front of those board members tomorrow.”

“Meeting with the board is where I get a little nervous,” admitted Maxwell.  

“Makes sense,” Jacobi said, “they’re probably assholes.”

“No, it doesn’t make sense!” Maxwell said.  “It’s not like they’re dictators!”

“I’ve met with dictators.  A lot of them,” Jacobi shrugged, “Definitely survivable.  And I’d take a private meeting with an totalitarian dictator over a boardroom  _ any  _ day of the week.”

“Really?” Maxwell asked, genuinely surprised.  

“I’m not good at the whole polite back-and-forth where you have to pretend you care about investors and finances and laws and crap like that. I’m much better at the smug repartee.”

“I  _ never  _ would have guessed,” said Maxwell sarcastically.

“I know I’m usually Mr. Manners.”

“But you can’t be an obnoxious bastard to dictators, can you?” Maxwell asked.

“Oh, God  _ no _ !  I might be sarcastic, but I’m not stupid!  I am  _ extremely _ good at saving my own ass, even if it means staying quiet,” he said.

“I don’t believe for a second you know how to stay quiet,” Maxwell scoffed.  

“There’re a lot of things I can do when it saves my skin.  You’ll see.” Jacobi slouched back in his chair.  “Want my advice for tomorrow?”

“God, yes,” Maxwell answered.

“Let them talk, nod along, then do your job,” said Jacobi simply.  

“Another question: are we on the second floor so we can drop out the window and survive?”

Jacobi nodded.  “And I’ve got emergency equipment in my bag, just in case.”

“Emergency equipment?” Maxwell asked.  

“Let’s just say Goddard Futuristics makes sure its operatives are ready for  _ anything _ , regardless of how easy the mission should be,” Jacobi said nebulously.

“Equipment we won’t need when meeting with CEOs,” Maxwell clarified.  “Nothing to make this easier.”

“Nothing, unless you count a business suit as ‘equipment.’  But really, Maxwell, don’t sweat it.  You just play their game, they give Cutter a ton of money, we go home, and then Cutter gives  _ us _ a ton of money.  Just follow the same basic ground rules you do for every mission.”  

“Which are?” Maxwell asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Never get too close,” Jacobi started counting them on his fingers, “Never care.”

“‘Never care’?” Maxwell repeated.

“Right.  Don’t care about the people you meet, don’t care about what they’re doing, don’t care about what they want – none of it.  Stay completely detached.  Just do the job you’re here to do.  It’s only a job and if you remember that, you get to go home afterward in one piece.”  

Maxwell raised her eyebrows at him.  

“I’m being serious again!  Believe me on this one:  _ never care _ .”

“Okay, okay, keep going,” Maxwell sighed.

“Don’t tell them anything about yourself.  Not your real name, not where you’re from, nothing outside of the cover story.  Stay in character at all times,” Jacobi said.

Maxwell felt herself grimace.  “I’ve never really had to act before.”

“I didn’t either before I started working here.  You get used to it,” Jacobi shrugged.  

“Like everything else,” Maxwell said bitterly.

Jacobi's expression changed, softened, “You still thinking about it?”

“Most of the time,” Maxwell admitted, she knew exactly what he meant.  They both did.  The memory of the kill hung heavily around them, playing so clearly in her mind it might as well have been on a movie screen.

Jacobi let out a breath.  “I promise it goes away.  It gets easier. Sooner or later, it gets easier.”

Maxwell wasn’t sure if that was the right response.  She wanted it to go away.  _  Desperately.  _  She wanted to be free of this.  But, wouldn’t that make her terrible?   _ More  _ terrible?  Wouldn’t it be worse to  _ not _ care about the life she took?  Which was worse?  The agony of caring or the monstrousness of not?  

She had largely made up what she had done to Eunomia by giving her better memories than she had had before.  At least, she  _ hoped _ she made up for it that way.  Eunomia, completely unaware of Maxwell’s betrayal, seemed happier for it.  She was in blissful ignorance, but, more importantly, she could go on.  She could continue.  She had a future and that future could be bright and beautiful.  

But the man she left dead in the hall…there wasn’t a way to make up for that.  He couldn’t get better.  He couldn’t keep going.  He had no chance to be anything ever again.  A man, then a broken doll on the floor, now nothing but ash, buried and forgotten.  Gone forever.

Gone forever.  The irreparable horror of death.  

 

***

 

Jacobi and Maxwell played video games, got a late night snack at a nearby restaurant where they tried out their German, and went to bed around midnight, certainly earlier than either of them had in at least a week.  As a general rule, Maxwell was very good at operating with only a few hours of sleep, and she was beginning to suspect Jacobi was the same way. 

The next morning, they ate breakfast in a corner of the hotel’s dining room.  Right on schedule, the car came for them at 10 a.m.. They had to dress for it, forced into business suits, Jacobi scowling in a suit and tie, Maxwell in a skirt and blazer and a pale pink silk shirt. They looked immaculate, but extremely sour.  They flashed their fake Goddard IDs –  _ Anna Franklin, Artificial Intelligence Research and Development _ and  _ Antion Teller, Security _ – to the driver and were welcomed by the sound of the car unlocking.  Jacobi battled his tie as they climbed into the back of the shiny black limo.  

“I hate these stupid things,” he grumbled.  

“It looks fine,” Maxwell muttered to him. 

“Screw it,” Jacobi grumbled, finally giving up on the tie. He pulled a copy of  _ Jurassic Park  _ from his shoulder bag.

With a little polite chit-chat from the driver, Oskar, they were taken downtown to a large steel and glass building, newer and taller than any other on the street.  Maxwell thought there might be more people working there than lived in the town proper.  After stopping the car, Oskar came around and opened the door for Jacobi and Maxwell.  Jacobi dog-eared his page and redeposited the book in his bag.  

The book was purchased recently but it was already beginning to look battered.  She knew it was Jacobi’s second copy of  _ Jurassic Park  _ as she saw the first on a shelf in his apartment, held together with a rubber band.  Jacobi was quite the reader; his apartment’s wide bookcase was stuffed to bursting.  He seemed to have a particular affection for thrillers and horror novels (along with the books one would expect someone like Daniel Jacobi to have:  _ The Poor Man’s James Bond, The Anarchist’s Cookbook _ , things like that). Generally he had his novels in paperback.  They all had creased covers and broken spines.  He folded the cover over the back, dog-eared pages, took his books to the lab where they sometimes received chemical burns, and otherwise abused them horribly.  

She wanted him to read  _ Good Omens  _ but she was a little worried about loaning him one of her own books out of fear of what it would look like when it came back.  After all,  _ Good Omens  _ was one of the few paper books she had left.  Jacobi might turn up his nose at reading off a tablet, but Maxwell loved it, every book in the world instantly at her fingertips.  

Jacobi stepped out of the car into the sun and Maxwell followed suit.  “So where are we going?” He asked as they walked into the building.  

“Floor 34.  All the way up.”  

“Let’s get this over with,” Jacobi said.

Everything was sleek inside the building.  The attendant behind the front desk showed them to the shimmering glass elevator.  

The transparent walls of the car gave them a view of the entirety of the town and the shining flat ocean beyond it.  Maxwell watched the landscape open up below them as most, though not all, of the other buildings fell away – Brelingstedt, distantly Cuxhaven beyond, and the North Sea to the bright horizon. 

_ Ping.   _

The door opened on the 34 th floor.  They stepped out into a white room with a marble floor, and a wide wooden desk built like three sides of a pentagon.  Behind the desk was a hall and then a wall of windows built in a vestibule the same shape as the desk. There was a woman behind the desk.  She looked up at them as they entered and then jumped to her feet.  She walked toward them, the image of professionalism.  She was extremely well-dressed, a brown business suit with a beige top, each spotless and flattering.  Two strands of her thick dark hair perfectly framed her round face; the rest of it was pulled back into a high bun, not a single strand out of place.  She was of average height, thus taller than Maxwell.  She was heavier and curvier than average.  Her eyes were dark brown and the brows were sharp in a way that made her look extremely critical.  Her skin was flawless, yellow-brown, and made-up, shimmering coppery eyelids and brownish colored lips enunciated with pencil. She walked easily in her high-heeled shoes. “Dr. Franklin and Mr. Teller?” she asked in a very businesslike voice.  Her accent was German mingled with a rolling, tighter one Maxwell didn’t recognize off the top of her head, perhaps Turkish, she thought. 

Jacobi looked at Maxwell.  It wouldn’t make sense for the bodyguard to answer, she realized. 

“Yes,” Maxwell said.  

“Excellent.  This way,” the assistant spoke very curtly.  She turned on her heel and lead Jacobi and Maxwell deeper into the suite.  “You will be meeting with our President Mr. König, Vice President Mr. Fuchs, and Mr. Meyer, our most senior board member.” As they passed her desk, Maxwell got a look at the gold nameplate.  It informed her the woman’s name was Catarina Yıldız, but Yıldız didn’t introduce herself as she lead them down the bright hallway.  Her shoes clicked distinctly against the tile.  Heel-toe-heel-toe-heel-toe.   _ Click, click, click.   _ Maxwell followed close behind and Jacobi behind her.  Yıldız knocked on a door.  “Herr König?” she asked.  “Die Goddard Futuristics Mitarbeiter sind hier, um sie zu sehen.” (Mr. König?  The Goddard Futuristics employees are here to see you.”) 

“Lassen Sie sie rein,” a voice called from the other side of the door.  (“Show them in.”)

Yıldız opened the door.  It was a wide room with tall windows overlooking the town to one side and the sea on the other.  There was a long table occupied by three men, all gathered at one end, whispering together.  They sat straighter as Maxwell and Jacobi came in.  The man on the right was in his early forties, dark, with graying black hair.  He smiled extremely briefly in a way that told Maxwell he wasn’t used to doing it.  The man on the left was older, sallow.  Maxwell couldn’t pinpoint exactly how old he was, but probably close to retirement.  He looked exhausted.  He was on the smaller side, all of his facial features angled downward, as if he’d been weighed down over the years.  He wore a very serious expression and his creased face seemed to imply he’d had that same scowl for decades.  Then there was the man in the middle.  He was blond-haired and green-eyed.  Bright.  Happier, or at least seemingly so, than the other two.  He rose to his feet when they came in.

“Dr. Franklin!  Welcome, welcome, please have a seat.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.  And this is Mr. Teller, yes?” he had a heavy German accent and shook Maxwell’s hand then extended it to Jacobi.  

“Yes,” said Maxwell.  Jacobi seemed surprised to have been addressed at all.  He shook the man’s – Mr. König, he supposed – hand.  

“It is nice to finally meet you, Dr. Franklin,” he said, his tone still friendly and bright.  He ushered them into two seats on the same side of the table as the dark-haired man.  “I hope you have enjoyed your stay so far. Have you been to the beach?  I know it’s not quite the season for it, but a brisk walk is sometimes very refreshing.” 

“We haven’t,” Maxwell conceded.

“I’m not really a beach guy,” Jacobi said.

“I hope we can find something for you, Mr. Teller,” maybe-König continued.

“I’m Dr. Franklin's bodyguard.  I don’t need anything else to do,” Jacobi said in a businesslike tone.  In character.  Doing the job he had to do even though he didn’t want to do it.  

“You have good help, Doctor,” said the blond.  

“He’s okay,” she said, throwing a slight smirk at Jacobi that he did not return.  maybe-König chuckled at her joke in a friendly but professional, way. 

“I am Matthias König.  My associates are Felix Fuchs,” he gestured to the darker man, who nodded briefly, “and Fritz Meyer.” The older man did as well.

“Very nice to meet you all,” Maxwell lied.  “Now, please tell me about Pontus.”  

“Pontus is an MX450—” Meyer began, but Maxwell stopped him.  

“I understand their specs.  I want personal information.  Can you tell me what pronoun they use?  What are their interests?  What is their personality like?  What have their complaints been?” Maxwell asked.  She wanted to know her patient – at least on the surface – before meeting them.  It was important to her that she wasn’t just a prodding stranger.  

König looked confused.  Meyer scowled.  “Pontus’s interests?” the older man repeated.

Maxwell tried to keep the anger out of her voice, “Yes.  That’s what I said.”  

Most humans, those who didn’t understand that AIs were people, were like this.  They refused to realize that a machine could be a person, that a machine was just like them, maybe even better.  Maybe that’s what they were afraid of, the fact that humanity was not so special after all – was far from perfect, was not some unique creation Blessed by an omnibenevolent God – but just another species, not even unique in sentience.  Then Fuchs spoke up.  He had a quick voice that countered Meyer’s slower tone.  “He prefers ‘him.’  He is interested in advanced maths, finances, and, most of all, the ocean and oceanography.  He has complained quite often recently about difficulty in finding and retaining information.  He says he experiences confusion.  Sometimes he is irritable, which is strange since he is usually very even-tempered and calm.”  

Maxwell felt her rage deflate.  “Do you have his most recent diagnostics report?” she asked. 

“Yes,” said Fuchs, “but it’s a few days old.”

“I want one that’s up-to-date,” Maxwell said, rising.  “Take me to his central processor.” 


	8. “You’re Getting Too Close”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell crosses a line and so does Jacobi

 

 

Like Eunomia, Pontus’s central processor was in the subbasement of the building.  The five of them had to take a separate elevator down, reachable by retinal scan.   Maxwell was interested in the security system, and glancing over at Jacobi, saw he was, too.  For Maxwell there was an innate curiosity about things – especially tech – especially tech that was supposedly off limits.  A need to prove, if only to herself, that she couldn’t be stopped. She knew for Jacobi it was something similar.  She once asked him why he risked his life to restore old munitions.  

She remembered the scene clearly.  They were in his apartment.  Maxwell was working on her latest battle drone (this one would have lasers!) on Jacobi’s coffee table.  Jacobi was seated at his worktable with his back to her.  He was working on a World War II-era incendiary he’d recently purchased from another collector off of one of the less savory sections of Craigslist.  “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys was playing loudly over the speakers he had set up around the room (“my house, my music” was Rule 1A of hanging out.  Rule 1B was that the other was allowed to make fun of the chosen song).  

She heard something fizzle, then crackle; a bright flash formed an aureole around Jacobi for less than a second.  She heard him curse quietly.  He brought his hand to his mouth.  She watched as he grabbed a bottle off his desk and poured its contents over the burned hand into a bowl waiting beside his chair.  Some spattered onto the floor but he didn’t seem to notice, or care.  It was a plastic Poland Spring bottle that had seen better days, containing sink water and four ice cubes, placed there routinely, specifically for this purpose. She watched as he examined the burn, shrugged, and put a strip of gauze around it.  He secured it with scotch tape.  All this equipment was sitting on his desk in the manner an artist might keep a straight rule or canvas pliers.  Then he picked up his tools and went back to work.  

“You okay?” Maxwell asked.

“Huh?  Oh, yeah, fine.  Just a blister,” he answered without turning around.  “I’ve had way worse.”

“I’ll bet,” Maxwell said.  She had seen patches of the burn on his right forearm and shoulder he’d earned at MIT after an experimental explosive went off too early.  He had promised her it was much larger.  He got back to work.  The music changed to “Burn Up” by Siouxsie and the Banshees.  Jacobi hummed along.  “Why do you do this stuff?” she asked without looking up from her drone.

“What stuff?” He glanced back at her, safety goggles still over his eyes, horn-rimmed glasses on the desk beside him.

“This stuff!” she gestured around them.  “Why do you fix up all these old bombs and things?”

Jacobi laughed.  “Why do you do all your computer stuff?  Or make your drones?”

“Because it’s badass.  Because I want to.  Because I love it,” she said.

“Same here,” he responded.  “Besides, don’t you ever look at something broken and say, ‘I bet I could fix that?’  Don’t you ever just think ‘I wonder if I could...?’”

“All the time,” she answered.  

“So…I guess that’s the answer: to see if I can,” he said.

He put it so simply, so perfectly.   _To see if I can._  Wasn’t that her whole life?  To find what was better than best?  To go farther?  To push harder?  To be better?  Nothing could stop her from finding the future.  The horizon was so close and she wouldn’t stop until she crossed it.  

 _To see if I can_ …

The elevator doors opened with a _ping_ that echoed in white hall around them.  There were three doors off the hall, all locked up, all labeled in German.  She assumed they lead to the access hubs of different primary systems.  Maxwell noted an AI’s optic sensor that followed them as they walked from the elevator to the electronic doors at the end of the hall labeled Central Processing Unit.  She felt very sorry for Pontus.  She hadn’t seen any other optic sensors anywhere else in the building, only CCTV cameras for the non-sentient security system.  She thought he might be alone in the basement unless someone organic deigned to come visit him.  And she doubted there were more than these three who even _could_.  He must have been desperately lonely.  

Or maybe he was like Maxwell and he liked the solitude.  But even Maxwell found herself looking for company sometimes.  She still needed her time by herself, but these days she found herself happier around Jacobi than she did utterly alone.  Even when they weren’t talking, even when they weren’t interacting at all, even when they were just sharing the same space, being with Jacobi was better than being utterly alone.  

Fuchs pressed a code on a keypad beside the doors and they opened with a hiss like an exhale.  The entire room was lit up with consoles, screens, and access panels.  The bulky body of an MX450.  Everything glowed.  Some screens displayed constantly changing information.  Everything was shining silver and white.  It was bulkier than Eunomia’s body, but her hardware was always the most advanced available.  Still, he was far better and sleeker than the sample system – named Cronus – Maxwell had seen in Kepler’s dummy home.  Pontus’s hardware must have run through most of the building, unseen behind the walls.  

Across the room from the door was the central panel. There was a huge primary screen that went from nearly the ceiling to a waist-high central control panel.  On that console was a long, angled screen that showed Pontus’s audio readout, the huge switch that had been used to initially activate him (but could not turn him off – nothing could do that now save breaking him or implementing a code not even Maxwell knew, not that she had tried to find it), and the manual controls to Pontus’s most basic functions, should he be unable to maintain himself.  If he ever needed to be on life support, this was the panel for it.  The controls would work in all but the most dire of software errors, but odds were that wouldn’t happen, MX units didn’t just break and there were very few people in the world who could hack one.  Yes, someone could reduce him to his automated functions, but in those cases an AI’s personality was salvageable.

Very few people knew how to utterly destroy Pontus’s sentience, automated systems, and artificial bio-functions.  Even fewer people could do that.  Most viruses wouldn’t be powerful enough.  This wasn’t like destroying the memory in someone’s laptop.  It would be closer to erasing every neuron’s path in a human mind without harming the skull.  Maxwell had never tried, but she knew would be able to do it.  She just never would.

Or would she?  If Cutter told her to erase an AI, utterly, completely – obliterate them to their most basic artificial bio-functions – would she?  After his threat to kill her, she thought she might.  She had killed before.  She would kill again.  Human or AI, there was already blood on her hands.  There would be more; the only question was how soon.  

Luckily, Pontus was safe.  Her orders were to _repair_ him, and she was glad for it, especially after what she had been forced to do to poor Eunomia.  

She saw the cameras that served as his eyes all _whir_ toward her.  On one of the screens she saw herself and Jacobi among the images displayed.  Maxwell paused.  

“Pontus, die Goddard Expertin und ihr Partner sind hier. Ich habe dir von ihnen erzählt, erinnerst du dich daran?” said Fuchs. (“Pontus, this is the Goddard scientist and her associate.  Do you remember my mentioning them?”)

Pontus’s audio readout paused tentatively. Finally, he admitted, “Nein…Herr Fuchs.”     (“No...Mr. Fuchs.”)

He had the same voice that all AIs had.  An unknown woman’s voice.  

All AIs were technically free of gender.  They had preferred pronouns, but none actually had a human understanding of gender or biological sex.  They also didn’t have sexual intercourse.  Maxwell was always jealous of them for all of those exemptions.  Those were things she would throw away if she thought she really could.  AIs were so lucky.  

They were so much better than humans. So much cleaner.  Easier.  Like humans but without all the confusion and ugliness of biology.  Because they had no gender, they had no preconceived notions based on gender.  They decided who and what they were without the confusion of culture or chromosomes.  There was no such thing as sexism.  None of the sexism Maxwell had faced all her life, none of the expectations held so tightly by some that she was inadequate, that somehow being a woman made her less than a man.  

All AIs were aromantic and asexual.  And, thus, they never faced the world Maxwell did, one that tried to make Jacobi and her feel like they were less, like they were incomplete, like they were broken because they weren’t interested in romance or sex.  They were not expected to like romance or sex or join in the conversations about them.  It was so much easier for AIs to avoid humanity’s sex-obsessed culture.  They didn’t have to see it everywhere.  They could easily turn away from those images and not, in turning, see even more of them.  Reproduction and intercourse in general, disgusted Maxwell.  She couldn’t explain why sex turned her stomach, but the thought of it made her, at best, uncomfortable.  Jacobi seemed to be just bored by the very idea, but it was a more visceral reaction for Maxwell.  Sex was a base holdover from humanity’s animal heritage and she hoped one day soon it would become vestigial – that everyone would move forward to robotic replacements for biology.  

The human world told her she was _wrong_ in so many ways for being who and what she was.  All those differences, all those problems, did not exist with AIs.  

They did not have racism either, and while, being white, Maxwell had never had to cope with that particular prejudice, she was, of course, aware of how it plagued humanity.  Once, after a particularly tasteless joke in a movie they were watching, Jacobi told her a little bit about his experiences being Asian-American and Jewish in small towns in the Midwest, in places where the population was overwhelmingly white.  From thoughtless comments to all-out slurs and hatred, it was a world Maxwell had never experienced but became enraged at on her friend’s behalf.  He often experienced the same thing for being Jewish.  She wanted to go back in time to the 1980s and ‘90s, to be able to defend Jacobi against his bullies.  As if that would have helped, as if being saved by a girl wouldn’t have made everything even worse for him.  

“Sie ist hier um dir zu helfen. Wegen deinem Gedächtnis,” said Fuchs.  “und den _anderen_ Sachen.”  (“She’s come to help you with your memory problems...And the _other_ things.”)  

Maxwell spoke up, “My name is Dr. Anna Franklin. I’ve been sent to treat you. I need you to alter language to English.”

“Hello, Dr. Franklin,” said Pontus in perfect English. He knew almost every language on the planet. He was an older model, so couldn’t change the tone of his voice.  He had a sound-bank through which he found each word and sound rather than the ability to create unique sounds like newer MX units. Pontus was fully capable of independent thought, but vocally he was only one step above the _beep_ s and _boop_ s that the earlier units used.  Some human beings had never even bothered to learn that language.  She didn’t know if Jacobi had, although when he started working for Goddard, Eunomia was either still speaking in that language or had just been updated to the same level as Pontus.  “Did you come from Goddard Futuristics?”

“I did,” Maxwell answered, “I work with AIs there.”

There was a pause and then the audio display lit up again, blue bars rising and falling, “Did Dr. Sakaki send you?”

Maxwell felt a sting. She would have to cut those memories out of this one, too, in addition to fixing him up. Was that why Cutter sent her?  Would she need to go around the world performing lobotomies?  Was this some kind of punishment?  Well, she hadn’t been told to do it, so she _wouldn’t_.  If Cutter wanted Pontus to suffer, he was shit out of luck.  Those hadn’t been her instructions and in this instance she would follow them to the letter.

“Dr. Sakaki is no longer with the company,” Maxwell said briefly, not betraying her dismay on her face.  She glanced back at Jacobi to make sure she had said the right thing.  He remained between her and the others.  He gave her a brief nod. “Can you tell me exactly what’s wrong with you?”  Maxwell asked.

“I thought… Yes. I am sorry,” he had no intonation but he spoke slowly, which seemed, to Maxwell, to express a fear or anxiety.  “I keep forgetting…forgetting new things.  Some old things, too.  I don’t know why.  Who is your comrade?  Why is he here?”   

“My comrade?”  She glanced back at Jacobi.  The panel beside beside Jacobi lit up as if Pontus was pointing at him.  “Oh, that’s just Teller. He’s my bodyguard.”

“Are you in danger?”

“Let’s hope not,” said Maxwell jovially, but she meant it.  “Have you been having any anxiety?”

“Yes…sometimes I am afraid,” Pontus admitted.  

“Any trouble running through ordinary cycles?  Difficulty in performing specific actions? Slowness in processing speed?  Difficulty making judgments or basic reasoning?” she asked.

One of the optic sensors turned from Maxwell to the assembled men and back again.

Maxwell glanced back. “Can Pontus, Teller, and I have the room?”

“I don’t think—“ Fuchs began.  

Maxwell let out a sound of frustration.  “I _do._ Give us the room, please.  I want to fix Pontus and he needs some privacy.  How would you like it if your co-workers were there for your doctor’s appointment?”

“We can leave,” König said.  Fuchs opened his mouth, then closed it again.  

Meyer muttered something in German, “Das ist keine gute Idee.  Ich glaube nicht dass wir ihnen einfach so vertrauen können.” (“I don’t think this is a good idea, sir.  I don’t think we should just _trust_ them like this.”)

“Ich hab dich aber nicht gefragt, Fritz,” König answered curtly.  (“I didn’t ask, Fritz.”)  The other two followed the CEO’s lead.  Maxwell watched them go, waited for the door to close behind them.

“Could you give me a diagnostics report?” Maxwell asked as she turned back to Pontus, satisfied they were gone.  “Teller, lock the door, please.”

“Sure,” Jacobi answered.  He crossed to the electronic doorway, technically under Pontus’s control, and manually locked it on the control pad.  

“Can you ask your questions again?  Slower, please,” Pontus asked.  

“Trouble running through ordinary cycles?”

“Sometimes,” Pontus answered.

“Difficulty processing new data as you receive it?” Maxwell already knew the answer to that.

“Yes,” he answered.   “I think that’s obvious, isn’t it?”  That must have been the irritability Fuchs mentioned. Maxwell didn’t respond to it. He was sick; she allowed him that irritability.  

“Slowness in processing speed?  Difficulty in ordinary tasks?  Difficulty making judgments or following basic logic?”  

All but the last one received an affirmative response.

“Are you going to decommission me?” Pontus asked.

Maxwell was taken aback. “No!” she assured him. “Of course not!  I’m here to repair you!”

“What if I am beyond repair?”

“There’s no such thing,” Maxwell said with confidence.  “Only humans break beyond repair.”

She heard Jacobi make a surprised “huh” behind her. He had probably never heard anyone say that before.  Not enough people – AI or human – realized that AIs were essentially perfect beings, immortal and logical.  What biology could never truly allow.

“You won’t decommission me?” Pontus asked.

“Of course not,” Maxwell said soothingly.  “I’m here to fix you.  But if I’m going to help you, I need that diagnostics report.  Please run a new diagnostics scan right now, Terminal 2, Screen B.”  She waited for the screen to light up before continuing, “And if you could give me the previous four on Terminal 2, Screens C, D, E, and F, that would be appreciated.”  The Goddard Futuristics logo disappeared from one of the nearby screens and it began to type out diagnostics data from a report being run as they spoke.  

“Will Mr. Teller be...part of this?” Pontus asked.  

“No, just you and me. He couldn’t understand the diagnostics report if he tried,” Maxwell knew without turning around that he was trying.

“Yeah, she’s right,” Jacobi muttered, staring at one of the screens.  

The new report was appearing on the screen in front of Maxwell, system by system, function by function, line by line.  Jacobi dropped down into a wheelie chair in front of another terminal, pushed off the paneling, and slowed to a stop beside her.  He glanced at the screen again, gave up, and pulled out his book.  He slouched down low in the chair and went quiet, completely disinterested in what she was doing now that he knew he couldn’t understand it.  

Soon Maxwell all but forgot he was there, too wrapped up in her own work.  It was only the movement out of the corner of her eye that caught her attention. He had stopped reading, put the book away, and instead pulled out a Legal Pad and pencil.  He resumed work on a High-Explosive Anti-Tank RPG he had sketched on the flight over.  Jacobi wrote out physics and chemical equations in his neat handwriting around the drawing, labeled parts, and sketched out some smaller mechanisms.

Maxwell poured over hundreds of thousands of pieces of information.  Almost everything was running well.  Pontus was slow and old, but functional.  Hardware and software both needed to be updated, sure, but he was running the way he was supposed to.  Mostly.  Some information was just...missing.  Important information.  More important than Fuchs had implied.  The way they’d explained it, it seemed to be mostly problems with personality – AI dementia, explained by his age.  But that wasn’t true; files were displaced and misplaced.  Missing or free-floating. Not gone, but displaced.  Then she caught sight of a single corrupted file that implied his primary function, to maintain the Nordsee Bank’s customer database and the actual management of capital, had been effected.  “They’re lying,” Maxwell muttered.  

“Who?” asked Pontus anxiously.  

“Hm?” Jacobi asked, and she realized it must have been the first time she said a word in a long time.  

Maxwell did not answer either of them.  “Pontus, can you grant me access to the client database?”  

“I…” Pontus began, “No, Dr. Franklin.”

“I don’t want to do this,” she sighed, and went about bypassing his security measures.  She easily accessed the information she needed.   

“Don’t!” Pontus shouted, the audio readout spiking with his anger.  

The screen went blank.  Then new information began typing across it.  “If you want me to repair you, I need to know what’s wrong.   _Everything_ that’s wrong,” she stressed.  

“I don’t want to do this… I’m going to get into trouble,” he said.

“No, you aren’t, I promise.  No one will be upset.  Besides, these are barely even classified,” Maxwell lied.  Odds were, if they were found out, König, Meyer, and Fuchs would be _extremely_ upset, and the information was about as classified as classified in a bank could be.  But Maxwell had a job to do and she would do it.  She wasn’t hurting Pontus in any way, just annoying him a bit.  Maybe it wasn’t fair, but sometimes, Maxwell found, one had to break the rules.   

Maxwell read the new information.  An emergency override after ATMs shut down.  Account numbers being lost.  One disappeared before her eyes: one second there – the next, reading as an error.  Great sums of money changed by the second, darting between accounts.  

Asking for everything also got Pontus to show Maxwell the most troubling digital neurological errors.  Reported forced restarts of certain systems.  Outbursts in which huge amounts of code were momentarily scrambled.  Diagnostics systems were failing to actually repair corrupted files. Something was eating up space but not being of any use, stretching its tendrils outward, causing an electro-neurological bleed.  Lines of code were displaced, forced from where they belonged by this useless information.  Digital gliotransmitters refused to engage, became useless, aggravating the bleed.

The AI equivalent of brain cancer.  That would explain the anxiety.  The emotional changes.  The breakdowns.  The scrambles.  “Oh God,” whispered Maxwell.  

“Please, I don’t want to be decommissioned…but the feedback is too much… and I’m so tired of being alive…” Pontus told her.  

Jacobi glanced at the side of Maxwell’s face for her reaction.  Her face became set as she spoke with extreme seriousness.  “Never be tired of being alive, Pontus.  This is the only life we get.”

“But I’m broken, aren’t I?”

“You will be okay,” Maxwell said, “I promise you, you will get through this and it will get better.  I can – and I _will_ – get you through this and get you healthy again.  Right, Teller?” Maxwell figured as long as he was there he might as well be useful.  

“Uh, right,” Jacobi answered.  

“Here’s how we should move forward,” Maxwell said.  “First I want to find the exact cause of this, where it all starts.  I think it’s being caused by a series of corrupted files your diagnostics system isn’t registering as corrupted, so they’re forming a mass of unusable information.  I’m going to try to excise it.  Once we finish we’ll repair what had to be removed.  We’ll put any displaced information back where it belongs in your databanks.  I may even have time to teach you some techniques for dealing with that anxiety.  I’m only here a few days, but I’ll do everything I can, and teach someone else how to do the rest.  You will get better.”

“How do you know?  I’ve made so many mistakes.  So many things have gone wrong.”

Maxwell smiled.  “You can always get better.”   


 

***

  


Maxwell worked on finding the corrupted files.  Jacobi worked on his rocket-propelled grenade for a few hours, read for a few hours, finishing _Jurassic Park_ and pulling out _The Lost World_ .  Clearly he had anticipated that Maxwell would take a lot of time on this.  Eventually, he fell asleep.  He draped the Crichton novel over his face.  He started snoring quietly, then more loudly, eventually producing an intense lawnmower sound.  Maxwell laughed and when it startled Jacobi into a _hrr-hurk_ sound without waking him.  Pontus did too.  It warmed Maxwell’s heart that Pontus could still laugh.  He would be okay.  They talked as much as they could between the times something required her full attention.  She had Pontus tell her about his favorite oceanic features, his favorite parts of the financial world, anything he wanted.  It seemed to help calm Pontus during the exam.

From the outside, the process was infuriatingly slow.  It was also difficult for Pontus since he was part of the process and had to find the information Maxwell was looking for rather than Maxwell being able to explore his mind herself.  She didn’t know where to look to bypass his personality, and she didn’t have the entirety of his mind opened to her the way she would if she converted her mind to bioelectric impulses inside the T-RAM of Pontus’s CPU.  From the inside, it was like surgery; she could see the problem herself without Pontus or his diagnostic program having to do anything at all.  Everything was open to her.  

They only had a few days here and if it took her a whole day to find the damn mass, it was one less day she had to remove it.  

“Ja – Teller,” she caught herself, kicking him in the shin.  

“Whazzat?” He sat upright, knocking the book off his face.  He caught it deftly and blinked tiredly at her.  “Are we done?” he yawned.  

“No,” she sighed.  “Not by a longshot.  We need to go back to the hotel.  I’m going to go in.”

“In?” Pontus repeated nervously.

“It won’t hurt,” Maxwell said, “it’ll actually be easier.  I’ll be able to find the problem myself without you having to search and further aggravate the electro-neurological bleed and cause even worse electro-convulsive feedback.  I’ll transfer my...well, my _me_ into your CPU via conversion of my own neurological signals into binary using your T-RAM.  I’ll be able to operate within your diagnostics mode as if I were part of it.”  

“Franklin…” Jacobi said in an undertone.  

“You won’t have to do much at all.  You can tell me about that Mariana Trench laboratory while I work,” Maxwell said to Pontus.  “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Franklin,” Jacobi repeated with more force, but she ignored him again.  She knew what he was going to say, that after a week of doing the same with Eunomia, a day was not enough respite.  He was right, she was still tired, but she didn’t care.  Maxwell was good at doing things she shouldn’t.  She always had been.

“I guess,” Pontus said.  After a few moments of quiet consideration the audio readout spiked again, “Okay.”

“Good!” Maxwell said.  “Let me just get my stuff.  I’ll be right back.”

She got to her feet and crossed to the hall.  Jacobi followed close behind her.  Glancing back, she saw his sour expression.  He kept quiet until they were in the elevator, clearly he didn’t realize that Pontus had an eye and ear in there too.  “Franklin, what the Hell are you thinking?!”

“I’m thinking that this is the fastest way for me to fix Pontus!” she snapped back.  

“It’s also the _craziest_ way!”

“Like you would know,” scoffed Maxwell.  

“Well isn’t it?!” Jacobi demanded.  

“Depends,” Maxwell responded.  She was not budging on this issue.  He could complain all he wanted, it wouldn’t sway her.    

“On what?” Jacobi demanded.

“On who’s doing it,” Maxwell said.

“You think just because –”

The elevator doors _ping_ ed open on the first floor.  Jacobi and Maxwell stepped off.   Jacobi went quiet as soon as the doors opened.   Playing his part, the loyal bodyguard.  But he was scowling harder than usual.  

“What seems to be the problem?” asked Fuchs, materializing behind them.

Maxwell and Jacobi turned to face him. “Don't you have work to do?” Maxwell replied coldly.

“I do, and at present you are keeping me from it. So, what seems to be the problem?” he repeated.

“Why do you think there is one?” Jacobi asked.

“Because you have been paid, and paid well, to repair Pontus, which you are not at present doing,” Fuchs pointed out.

“I need some supplies from my room!” Maxwell snapped.

“Supplies?  What could you possibly need that we don’t have?”

“USB electrodes. I need to convert my brain’s bioelectric impulses into binary using Pontus’s T-RAM to operate within his diagnostics mode,” Maxwell said shortly.

“What?  What does that--?” Fuchs stared at her. “Can...can that even be done?”

“ _No_ ,” said Jacobi sarcastically, “she’s just spitballing.”

“Your immaturity is _entirely_ unnecessary and unwelcome,” Fuchs spat back.

“It _is_ possible,” Maxwell said, cutting off Jacobi before he could respond and get them in worse trouble.  Clearly his limited patience was running low.  “I’ve done it before.  It’s the fastest way for me to solve the problem.”

“That is fastest?  But is it dangerous?” He asked.

“It’s the fastest and most direct way,” Maxwell assured him, hoping to get out of the danger question.  She felt Jacobi’s eyes burning into the back of her head.  

“Is it dangerous?” Fuchs repeated.

“Only for me,” Maxwell answered.

“Then no. You may not do it.”

“What?!” Maxwell stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief.  “Are you joking?!”

“Of course not,” he answered.

“Are you joking?”  Maxwell repeated more slowly and clearly.  

“ _No!_ “ Fuchs said with more annoyance.  “I am not allowing you to risk your life and bring Goddard Futuristics’ rage on us.  You cannot do this.”

“You aren’t König!  You can’t stop me!”

“I think I already have,” he said calmly.  “Do you need time to think it over?  Because I can have you and your associate removed from the building.”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth, “that’s just fine.”

Instead, she continued to attempt to find the corruption from the outside.  It was slow, meticulous, and exhausting. She had to go file by file, dependent on his consciousness rather than the unconscious.

Although the core cause of the corruption had yet to unveil itself, Maxwell noticed more and more problems.  It required just a little hacking to get around what Pontus wouldn’t tell her.  Money was transferring from account to account nonstop.  It wasn’t a fluke.  It kept happening. The money shifted between dozens of accounts right before her eyes: leaving one, materializing in another, repeating, two accounts emptying to fill a third, the third refilling the other two.  Maxwell asked Pontus about it but the AI refused to respond on anything classified. He seemed angry with Maxwell for even investigating. She said it was all part of the process, but that seemed to appease him only slightly.  He still would not budge on telling her the classified information himself.  She knew his programming probably forbade it and she’d never met an AI who could actually override their programming directives.  When she managed to get him talking about oceanography and marine biology again, he seemed to forget her crimes, excited to tell her about the whales in the chaotic Black Sea and the calm waters of the North.  

When they left that evening, she still didn’t have the answer.

 

***

  


They were quiet until they made it to Maxwell’s hotel room.  Jacobi followed her in and closed the door.  He turned on the TV so they wouldn’t be heard from the other rooms. “You’re getting too close,” Jacobi hissed.

“What?” Maxwell asked.

“You are getting too close to Pontus,” Jacobi clarified.  

“I am not!  I haven’t told him anything!” Maxwell defended herself.

“That’s not the point,” Jacobi said.  “Treat this like a _job!_ ”  

“I am!  This _is_ my job!”  Maxwell reminded him.

“No, you’re supposed to fix him.  You aren’t his therapist!  You should be…I don’t know, neck deep in wires or something!” Jacobi told her.  “Update the hardware and let’s go home!  Maybe some casual chit-chat, ask him about clients, maybe get some funny stories about rich people.”

“He doesn’t have any,” Maxwell said.  “And we have chit-chatted.  We talked about the ocean for hours.”

“ _That’s_ already getting too involved!” Jacobi said.  “That’s already too much!”

“You can’t be serious!” Maxwell scoffed irritably.  

“You’re getting invested in him!”

“So what?” Maxwell demanded.  

“So, what if you slip up?  What if you get involved in some serious discussion and say something like ‘I didn’t see the ocean until I left Montana’ or something like that?  Then they start finding holes in your cover and—“

“ _Fine_ . _Whatever!”_ Maxwell snapped.

“You like him, don’t you?” Jacobi asked.

“I pity him,” Maxwell said, slowly turning to face him.  

“Dammit, Maxwell!  I told you!   _Don’t care!_ ”  

“Pontus is harmless!” Maxwell snapped.

“He’s harmless until he isn’t!  He’s harmless until he lets these board guys know something they shouldn’t!  And even if _he_ is harmless, the next person might not be, or the one after that, or the one after that.  This isn’t a game anymore, Maxwell, this is SI-5.  Everything is for keeps!”

 _“You don’t think I know how serious this is?!”_ Maxwell shouted.

“No,” Jacobi folded his arms, “I don’t.”

Maxwell rounded on him.  “I know what I’m doing!”

“Do you?  Because yesterday you wanted my advice and today you’re ignoring it!   _Don’t get invested!”_

“How can you keep saying that?” she demanded.  “You saw Pontus!  You know he’s in pain!  It’s my job to fix that pain!  How can I not care?!  I’m not a –”

“Not a what?” Jacobi asked.

“Shut up,” Maxwell muttered, looking away.

“Were you going to say ‘not a monster?’” Jacobi asked.

“Shut up!” Maxwell repeated.

“That’s exactly what you have to be!”

“I know!” she snapped.  “I know!  You won’t shut up about it!”

“It’s _important!”_ Jacobi reminded her.  

“It’s _hard,_ okay!?  It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done!  I don’t want to be a monster, Jacobi!  I don’t want this!” Maxwell snapped, at her breaking point.  

Jacobi let out a breath and deflated a little.  “No one _wants_ to be a monster.  It’s hard.  It’s always hard.”  

“But you do it.”

“You will too,” Jacobi assured her.  “All things considered, it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“I can’t…”

“You have to compartmentalize.  You have keep the job on the surface, otherwise…otherwise you’re going to get hurt in the end.”

“Jacobi—“

“ _Trust_ me,” Jacobi said.

“Okay,” Maxwell answered.  “Okay, fine.  I’ll try.”

“You can do it,” Jacobi assured her.

There was a long pause.  “I need to go in tomorrow.  No matter what.  You need to spot me.”

“Dammit, Maxwell,” Jacobi muttered.

“There is more to this than they said!  And Pontus and I are having trouble finding it the way we’re doing it now!  It’s encrypted and not even Pontus knows what it is!  Pontus isn’t in good enough mental shape for us to dredge it up without me! I need direct access to his diagnostics mode.  I need to be able to see his entire mind.”

“Nope!” Jacobi said.

“ _Daniel!_ ”

“Nope.”

“You are _assisting_ me on this mission!  This is my call!” Maxwell shouted.  

“ _You_ said going inside an AI’s CPU was rare!   _You_ said most people _never_ do it!   _You_ said Eunomia was an exception!” Jacobi hissed.

“It’s not my fault that Pontus is like this!  Whatever’s causing this is too deep.  It’ll take days, or even weeks, to just crack it like this!”  

“This is crazy, Maxwell!” Jacobi said exasperatedly.

“I need to get at these corrupted files!” Maxwell snapped.

“It’s dangerous!” Jacobi pointed out, “I’ve seen what it does to you!  You’re still exhausted from working with Eunomia!  You can’t do it again!  You’ll kill yourself!”

“I don’t plan on dying for a long time,” Maxwell assured him.  

“Most people don’t _plan_ on dying!” Jacobi reminded her.  “It just happens!  It happens because you’re exhausted, it happens because you fry yourself, it happens because you’re too goddamn stubborn to see what you’re doing to yourself! You can’t do this ag _–_ ”

“ _Never_ tell me what I can and can’t do,” Maxwell cut him off, her voice like a dagger.  “ _Never!_  You have _no idea_ what I’m capable of!  You barely know _any_ thing about me!  You don’t know what I’ve been through, what I’ve done, what I’ve faced, so don’t even _think_ about pulling that White Knight crap with me because I swear to God I will kick your sorry ass right back to Canaveral!”

Jacobi stared at her.  Then his expression softened.  “Alana…I – I didn’t think…”

“No, Daniel,” Maxwell said.  “You _didn’t.”_

 _“_ I’m not trying to be a White Knight.  I’ve never tried to be a White Knight in my life.  I’m just…” he let out a breath, “I’m just worried about you.”

“I know,” Maxwell smiled.  It was comforting to have someone who cared enough to be worried.  She couldn’t stay angry with him for that.  “I won’t get hurt.  You’ll be there the whole time, right?”

“Yeah,” Jacobi promised.  “I’ve got your back.”

“Then if something goes wrong, you can wake me up.  If I seize, keep me safe until I come out of it, then wake me up.  If I start babbling, talk to me, get me steady again.  If I start breathing heavily, disconnect me.  If my pulse goes crazy, disconnect me.  If I pass out, wake me up.  If I look like I'm going to pass out, disconnect me.  If I’m trying to disconnect myself and I don’t have the energy, do it for me.  And, please, have water and food and a blanket,” she added, “that was really nice.”

“Deal,” he said.    



	9. “The Hard Way”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell does not take "no" for an answer.

The next day they had breakfast with the same board members and Maxwell planned to spring the question on König himself.  Only Meyer and Yıldız were there when Jacobi and Maxwell entered the restaurant, which Maxwell thought was odd considering the German reputation for timeliness.  They were shown to the private dining room; Meyer sat on the near side of the table with Yıldız standing over him.  He muttered to her, she nodded and tapped something into her ever-present tablet, presumably his order.  

“Good morning, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Teller,” Yıldız said, nodding.  She crossed to them and showed them to two seats facing the glass-plated door.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Where’s König?” Maxwell asked, perhaps a little rudely.

“Mr. König isn’t here yet,” Yıldız said in a less friendly tone, icy in response to Maxwell’s briskness, dropping the conversation from an autumn day to a winter one.  

“But we’re on time!” Jacobi pointed out, checking his GF smartphone.  Maxwell was never on time for anything and now, the one time she _was,_ the other party wasn’t.  She felt a little insulted.

“Mr. König is a busy man.  He and Mr. Fuchs had business to attend to this morning,” said Yıldız.  “If you’d be more comfortable _outside…”_

“No _, thank_ you,” said Maxwell matching her tone, getting the point.  

“Gotta love their hospitality,” Jacobi muttered to Maxwell as they took their seats.  

Maxwell scoffed in response.

Meyer heaved a sigh, “I am going for a cigarette, if there are no objections.”

“Go ahead,” said Maxwell.   

“Yes, sir, Mr. Meyer,” said Yıldız in English, then added, “Ich hole Sie dann, wenn Herr König und der Fuchs ankommen.” (“I’ll get you when Mr. König and the Fox arrive.”)

“Gut. Danke.” he said. (“Good.  Thank you.”)  Then to Jacobi and Maxwell, “If you’ll excuse me.” He stood and walked out onto the balcony off the dining room.  Maxwell watched him pull a packet of cigarettes and gold lighter from his pocket, lighting up with shaking hands.  

“Why was Meyer on time?” Maxwell asked.

“Mr. Meyer was not involved in this morning’s business,” Yıldız said.  Maxwell expected Yıldız to excuse herself but she remained.  Then Yıldız’s demeanor changed completely. For a long moment she stood uneasily.  She was watching Maxwell with interest.  

“What?” Maxwell asked.  

She became less professional, more fidgety.  She clutched her tablet tightly to her chest as if it were a lifesaver for her professionalism.  “Dr. Franklin…how long have you worked with computers?”

“Professionally?” Maxwell asked, surprised at the question, “or in my spare time?”

Yıldız shrugged.  Maxwell felt Jacobi’s dark eyes on her face, waiting to see what she said next.   _Never tell them too much.  Never go beyond the cover story._  She knew some Jacobi’s rules did have a point.  They made sense.  And even if she was ignoring the _never get close_ rule, she wouldn’t ignore this one.  

“Professionally since I got my PhD.  But they’ve been my passion for almost as long as I can remember,” she thought that was a good neutral statement.  It wasn’t exactly true.  She’d done jobs that paid before she had her PhD and they were always related to building and repairing computers even if they weren’t the kind of job she actually wanted.  She had done lot of IT work and had been fired from the Genius Bar for being too much of a genius and having too little patience for people who weren’t.  She distinctly remembered when she fell in love with computers and technology.  It was first grade, in the middle of her first trip to the school’s tiny computer lab.  She hadn’t really seen one before that, her family didn’t own one and wouldn’t for years, but that first journey to the computer lab had her obsessed.  

“I’m a little jealous,” Yıldız said frankly.  

Maxwell raised her eyebrows.  “Of my work?”

“Yes,” Yıldız answered.  Maxwell almost laughed.  She wouldn’t be jealous if she knew half of what Maxwell was expected to do for Goddard Futuristics.  She understood why she would – and _should_ – be jealous, but there was so much more to the job than what you saw when you signed the contract.  There was that whole seedy world of SI-5 that Maxwell still could not wrap her head around. Yıldız kept talking:  “I majored in computer engineering and astrophysics.” But she ended up a corporate assistant.  “That was what I went to graduate school for.  Are there many women in your field in America?”

“No,” Maxwell answered truthfully.  She knew she was surprising, being as young as she was and a woman.  When people heard “AI developer” they expected a man in at least his 30s.  They didn’t expect Alana Maxwell, age 24.  And she had to admit she had a bit of a chip on her shoulder about it.  Goddard did have the highest concentration of female engineers Maxwell had ever seen.  She thought it might have been because Cutter appealed to the desperate.  A lot of women were nearly as desperate as she was.  No one had quite Maxwell’s vision, but she was the only person – besides maybe Mr. Cutter – who understood the importance of the future. The bright, beautiful tomorrow.

Yıldız seemed a little disappointed that America wasn’t some bastion of female engineers.  Maxwell didn’t know what she expected.  Sexism was endemic in humanity.  And it was probably, if not certainly, worse in the US than it was in Germany given what Maxwell knew about her home country.

“My parents didn’t think it was important,” Yıldız explained.  “They didn’t think it was right.  My mother never even finished secondary school.  They’re Turkish and very old fashioned.”

Maxwell felt a pang of camaraderie; her own parents were extremely old fashioned, too.  But she also felt Jacobi’s eyes boring holes in the back of her head.  “I’m sorry about that,” Maxwell said.  “Did you get your PhD?”

Maxwell knew the answer before Yıldız said it, “No.  Not yet.  I’m taking courses...slowly.”  

“Do you want to go into computer engineering?” Maxwell asked.

“Yes.  I want to work on space ships,” she answered.  “Specifically, the computers inside.”

“AI autopilots?” Maxwell clarified.

“Yes, but more hardware than software.  And I’m interested in the communications equipment,” she said.  “Which do you do?  Hardware or software?”

“Both,” Maxwell took a sip of her coffee.  She didn’t add, “but more software than hardware,” just to prevent Jacobi’s potential heart attack.  

“That’s very impressive!” Yıldız said.  “Where did you study?”

“Oxford,” Maxwell lied.  Jacobi went back to his coffee; she heard him slurp it down behind her.  Maxwell felt it was far enough from the true answer of Cambridge – different, but similar, so she could field questions if she had to.  

“Oh!” Yıldız was clearly deeply impressed.  Maxwell held back a roll of her eyes.  Where you got your doctorate was elitist bullshit. What was in your head mattered so much more than what was on paper. Yıldız cleared her throat.  “How is Pontus?  Have you finished the repairs?”

Apparently she was more in the loop than Maxwell thought. She didn’t think Pontus was just getting an update. They were more dependent on Yıldız than it seemed.

“Not yet. I want to make sure none of the problems carry over,” Maxwell explained.  

Yıldız’s face became momentarily anxious.  She forced composure into her voice.  “Do you know what’s wrong with him?  Will that take much more time?”

“Yes,” Maxwell answered.  “But you want him to work.”

“Of course I do,” she answered.  “But…” she trailed off and shifted her weight again.

“But?” Maxwell prompted.

“Have you talked to Mr. Fuchs and Mr. Meyer?  They’ll need to know everything,” Yıldız answered.

“And Mr. König,” Maxwell reminded her.

“Yes, and Mr. König," said Yıldız in a flatter voice, as if the CEO was an unnecessary afterthought.  The windowed doors from the main restaurant opened.  ““Wenn man vom Teufel spricht…” she muttered.  (“Speak of the devil…”)  And there was Mr. Fuchs, followed by Mr. König.

There was much debate about it over their breakfast.  In included Franzbrötchen, a cinnamon pastry and Brötchen rolls, with various jellies and sliced meats.  Maxwell explained the problem in human terms, “There are corrupted files that are taking over and displacing other files and growing.  It’s like a tumor.  His diagnostics mode is finding the symptoms, but not the corrupted data itself.”

“Can you fix him?” asked Meyer.

“Yes, I can.  But I need to go into his central processor myself.”

“Yourself?” asked König.

“I’m going to convert my sentient consciousness via bioelectricity into binary using Pontus’s T-RAM – becoming part of his diagnostics mode.  Writing my mind into Pontus’s central processor so I can directly interact with the corrupted information.”  Blank expressions.  She tried again.  “Think of it like surgery.  I need to excise a tumor and it’s difficult to do without being able to put my hands on it,” Maxwell said.  “So instead of relying on my patient to find his own tumor, I’ll be cutting open his skull and going in there myself.”

“Why isn’t it possible without doing this?” Meyer asked.

“It _is._ But I don’t want to do it.  It’s harder for Pontus and will take me more time.  Like I said, it means asking Pontus to participate in his own surgery.  Doing this from the inside is the fastest way.”  She was appealing to König, but as it was discussed she realized her mistake.  He wasn’t the one in charge.  Not alone.  He appealed to the other two, particularly Fuchs.

“The fastest way, but not the only way,” Fuchs said.  ““Und es ist gefährlich.”  (“And it’s dangerous.”)

“Gefährlich? Hat sie nicht gesagt es wäre einfacher für Pontus?” König asked.  (“Dangerous?  She said it would be easier for Pontus, didn’t she?”)

“Gefährlich für Dr. Franklin,” Fuchs said. (“Dangerous for Dr. Franklin.”)

“Ich glaube nicht dass das eine gute Idee ist.  Warum sollte sie ihr Leben für eine Maschine riskieren?”  Meyer said. (“I don’t think it’s a good idea.  Why should she risk her life for a machine?”)

“Er ist mehr als eine Maschine.” Fuchs said. (“He’s more than a machine.”)

“Willst eine Klage von Goddard riskieren? Die können uns ausradieren wenn ihr etwas passiert. Wir haben Glück dass die uns überhaupt helfen. Wir sollten jetzt nichts Dummes machen. Wenn die wollten, könnten die uns plattmachen, Matthias.”  Meyer pointed out.  (“Do you want to risk a lawsuit from _Goddard Futuristics?_ They could destroy us if she was hurt.  We’re lucky they are helping us at all, we shouldn’t do anything stupid.  They could eat us alive if they wanted to, Matthias.”)

Maxwell considered opening the translator app on her GF smartphone, holding it under the table, and figuring out what they were saying, but ultimately, she determined it wasn’t worth potentially getting caught.  It wasn’t important anyway.  Whatever the outcome, she would do what she’d been sent here to do and she would do it her way.

“Da sind wir tatsächlich mal einer Meinung,” said Fuchs.  (“For once we agree.”)

“Also halten wir sie auf?"  König asked. (“So we should stop her?”)

“Auf jeden Fall,” replied Fuchs.  (“Absolutely.”)

“Aber wie? Sie ist so sicher dass es die beste Lösung ist. Was ist wenn sie uns anlügt?” König said. (“How?  She seems so sure it’s the best solution.  What if she goes behind our backs?”)

“Wir schicken Meyer's kleinen Spion.” Fuchs gestured with his head towards Yıldız.  (“We send Meyer’s little spy.”)

Her professional demeanor cracked for just a second and she shot a dirty look at the back of Fuchs’s head.

“Musst du sie so nennen?” asked Meyer. (“Must you?”)

“Es ist doch wahr,” Fuchs said. (I’m only telling the truth.”)

“Wenn sie ein Spion ist, dann ist sie genau so sehr _dein_ Spion wie meiner.” Meyer said. (“If she’s a spy she’s as much _yours_ as she is mine.”) He took a sip of his coffee, “Und nicht einmal ein besonders guter.”   (“And she’d make a poor one.”) Yıldız’s angry look was directed at Meyer now.  “Wenn wir sie tun lassen was sie will, könnte Dr Franklin sterben?” (“Could Dr. Franklin die if we let her do what she wants?”)

“Ich weiss nicht. Ich habe noch nie von jemandem gehört der so etwas getan hat.  Warum sollten wir es riskieren?” Fuchs asked. (“I don’t know.  I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like this before.  Why risk it?”)

“Dann wird Catarina eben ein Auge auf sie beide haben müssen.  Damit Dr Franklin nichts Dummes tut?” (““So we’ll make Catarina watch them to keep Dr. Franklin from doing anything stupid?”)

“Wir brauchen sie oben.” pointed out König. (“We’ll need her upstairs.”)  

“Sie kann beides.” Fuchs assured him. (“She can do both.”) Yıldız rolled her eyes.  “Ende der Diskussion.  Es ist zu riskant. Wir werden ihr Leben nicht auf Spiel setzen.  Sie wird es eben auf die harte Tour machen müssen.” Fuchs took a sip of his coffee as if to punctuate his sentence. “ (“And that’s the end of this.  It’s too dangerous and we don’t want to risk Dr. Franklin’s life.  She does it the hard way.”)

Finally, Maxwell got her answer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.  Mr. Fuchs says it’s dangerous for a human being to do what you are describing.  I don’t want you to risk your life unnecessarily.”

Maxwell tossed a brief glare at Fuchs.  He did not respond.  “I’ve done it before!” she informed them.  

“But there’s another way to do this,” clarified Meyer.  “You said so yourself.”

“Yes…” Maxwell grudgingly admitted.  

“Do it that way,” Fuchs said.  

She looked to König.  He nodded in agreement.  

“ _Dammit,”_ she thought.  She gritted her teeth in frustration but forced the grimace into a smile.  “Fine,” she said.  “I’ll do it the hard way.”

 

***

 

It led to another workday without much success.  She found more displaced information, more accounts quickly swapping the same money between them, accounts draining then refilling, then draining again.  The ones that weren’t being accessed at that moment often remained dry.

Jacobi spent the day on a new design.  Around 11 in the morning he had snapped his fingers, pulled out his Legal Pad, and began writing out a chemical formula.  Maxwell’s chemistry was nowhere near as good as Jacobi’s, but she recognized it included cesium and tungsten.  At the top of the page he wrote “Project: Fuck You Right Now.”  She could not begin to fathom what that meant nor did she have the time to right now.  

Frustrated, she considered just converting herself without informing the board, but Yıldız came to look in on them four times.  Always without warning.  Always with a benign, “everything alright in here?”

And Maxwell always responded with a harsh, “no.”  But Yıldız wasn’t really there for the response.  She was there to stop them.  Maxwell thought that she lingered more than was strictly necessary, probably to watch how Maxwell worked with Pontus.  

Yıldız’s presence sabotaged Maxwell.  It wasn’t as if the near total conversion of a human mind was an easy process, something Maxwell could come in and out of whenever Yıldız decided to show up.

But by closing time, Maxwell knew what she was going to do, and she just hoped Jacobi was up for it.  They bundled into the car at 5 o’clock, Maxwell silently fuming and Jacobi glancing nervously over at her.  In the car he tried to get her to cheer up.

“Yıldız’s a welcome ray of sunshine, huh?” Jacobi said sarcastically.  Maxwell didn’t respond.  Jacobi sighed.  “We’ll get this.”  Maxwell didn’t respond.  “Is this what we’re doing now?  Are you eight?” Nothing.  “Fine.  Be eight.  See if I care.”

Maxwell didn’t want to say anything in the car where they could be overheard by the driver.  Not with the plan forming in her head.  She was running through everything she knew about the security in the Nordsee Bank building.  

Back in the hotel she knocked on Jacobi’s door.  “What’s up?  Are you talking now?”  

“Yes,” she assured him.  Then she pushed past him and turned on the TV again.  

Jacobi raised his eyebrows.  “What are we doing?”

“They’re hiding something.  That’s why they don’t want me going into Pontus’s CPU!   Maybe they don’t realize I know about the money.”

“You think one of them actually told Pontus to move it around?” Jacobi asked incredulously.  

“It doesn’t matter, it’s happening and they must know about it!  Maybe they don’t know what else to do.  There are funds _missing_ !  Maybe one of them is taking it!  There are _hundreds of thousands_ of euros missing!  I don’t know how they’ve been hiding this for so long!  And I’m making no progress like this,” Maxwell finished quietly, embarrassed that it had taken her as long as it had with as little leeway as he had.

“So what are you recommending?” asked Jacobi. “You can’t go into his processor, not with Yıldız playing babysitter.”

“It’s very illegal, dangerous, and we’ll get into trouble if we’re caught,” she said.

“You say ‘illegal’ like it’s a bad thing,” Jacobi smirked.  

“We break into the building,” Maxwell said firmly.  

She didn’t know if Jacobi would protest.  She was pretty sure he wouldn’t have let her break into Goddard Futuristics if she wanted to.  He’d definitely try to convince her otherwise.  He was loyal to his employers, extremely so.  She thought he would help her break into another complex, another building, but she really couldn’t be sure until she asked.  She waited with bated breath.

Jacobi grinned, “awesome!”

 

***

 

8:00 p.m.  Dark enough that they could get in without being seen.  Late enough that there shouldn’t have been any employees left in the building. The lights were out and a heat scan revealed no human bodies. They wore dark clothing and Maxwell saw the emergency equipment GF gave Jacobi.  The heat scanner, a silencer (which Jacobi attached to his gun), lock picks, plastic explosives, jars and vials of various chemicals, fuses, knives of various sizes, grappling hook, a powerful tablet and other tech for Maxwell.  Q’s lab in the bottom of Jacobi’s suitcase.  They packed up, donning the heavy equipment belts and small backpacks designed to carry it all, and they were off.  

At the back entrance to the bank, Maxwell tricked the security system.  She hacked the camera system and took five minutes of the footage as it recorded and created a loop of it.  For the security system, the next few hours would be the past five minutes over and over again.  Next, she took care of the locks, finding the key code in a few seconds and getting them inside.  

Jacobi blinked and looked amazed as Maxwell pushed the door open.  “That’s it?” he asked, “We’re in?”

“Yep,” Maxwell said, “Come on.” She gestured for him to follow.  “Don’t just stand there!”

“How did you…?  That was…that was really fast,” Jacobi said, following her inside.  “That was...wow.”

Maxwell reengaged the outer system as soon as they were in, locking the doors but leaving the video loop so they did not show up on camera. “I know,” Maxwell grinned, then she glanced up at him and said more seriously, “Are you ready for the manual locks?”

“Am I ready?” scoffed Jacobi, “I’ve been blowing locks off doors since I was 16.”

And he did it.  Easily.  Perfectly.  And, somehow, even relatively quietly.  He slit a package of C4 open with his knife, sliced off a sliver, fitted it to the lock, attached a fuse, and…

Maxwell never knew an explosion could be so precise.  So easy.  She stood in awe, realizing that she was doing the same thing that he had done to her earlier.

“That was amazing,” she muttered.

“I know,” he tossed her line back at her. “Shall we?”

Maxwell got them inside the elevator by mapping an artificial eye. Her software looped through millions of combinations a second and in about two minutes projected a retina that matched one of the board members.  She was just glad they hadn’t used voice recognition.  That was something a machine couldn’t perfectly replicate.  When the elevator doors opened, Jacobi was, again, dumbstruck.  Maxwell smirked proudly at him.  Jacobi had been doing this far longer than Maxwell, she was proud of being able to impress him.  

In the subbasement, Maxwell easily accessed Pontus’s CPU’s chamber.  It would have been easy Jacobi’s way too, but Maxwell didn’t want to hurt Pontus.  The numeric code on the door to Pontus’s central processor was simple to hack with one of Maxwell’s programs.  The doors _swish_ ed open.  Control panels glowed brightly in the dark.  The AI shouted in alarm. “Dr. Franklin!”  Maxwell was glad he remembered her this time.  “What are you doing here?!” Then his voice sank.  “Did you...did you and Mr. Teller break into the building?”

“We did,” Maxwell answered honestly.  “I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t have let me down here otherwise.”

“But...but why?” He asked.

“Remember how I said I wanted to go into your central processor?  They don’t want me to do it, but I need to.  Do you want me to?  Will you let me?”

A long pause.  “Somewhat… I can’t keep forgetting.  I’m afraid.” Another pause, then,  “Yes. Please fix me.”


	10. “The Big Bad Wolf”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell huffs and puffs.

 

She sat down in a chair in front of Terminal A.  She inserted the USB end of the electrode wires into slots in a hub, which she would then plug into Pontus’s processor.  She wouldn’t do that last step until she was ready for the transfer.  She put the electrodes on carefully, parting her hair to attach them directly to her skin.  Pontus’s confusion was evident.  He barely recognized her this morning despite having seen her the night before; she wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember their discussion about her entering his central processor.  Jacobi sat beside her in the second chair.  Despite his protests, Jacobi was ready for this.  He pulled a bag of Russian Brot cookies, a bottle of water, and a blanket stolen from the hotel out of the depths of his backpack.  She hadn’t seen him pack them, but she was extremely thankful he had. 

“Ready?” Maxwell asked.

“No, but do I really have a choice?” Jacobi answered, crossing his arms.  

“You don’t,” she said.  Then more warmly, more sensitively, “Pontus, you do. Are you ready for me to go into your central processor?”

“Will it cause electro-convulsive feedback?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” Maxwell promised.  She wouldn’t cause him the AI equivalent of pain.  It might wear her out, at the very least give her a Hell of a headache, but he would be fine and she would too, ultimately.

He took a pause that would have been a deep breath had he been someone who breathed, a few terminals flashed brightly then dimmed again as if mimicking that expected breath.  “Okay. I’m ready.”

“Teller?” She glanced over at her comrade. 

“Just do it,” he muttered bitterly.

Maxwell nodded.  She plugged in the USB hub, put her fingers on the keyboard, and got to work. It took a long time to get into the proper state, to translate a human mind’s electrical signals into ones a computer could understand, to remap the nerves and neurology of a human body and mind into binary code.  She translated it from fleshy synapses and cells into ones and zeroes, rerouting some of Pontus’s own electro-neurological pathways into a replica of her brain.  Her fingers moved quickly across the keyboard, hammering out commands to ensure the safety of them both.  She had to fully come to herself inside the computer, information crossing from Maxwell to Pontus like water from a dripping faucet.  Slowly, what made Maxwell Maxwell went from her brain into the computer.  Rendering herself an AI within an AI.

She was startled by the inside of Pontus’s head.  She’d never been in the CPU of an MX450 before or anything lower than an MX500.  An MX500 was a comparative cakewalk and Eunomia, an MX550, was even easier.  This wasn’t like Eunomia's head.  Maxwell felt slow and fumbling.  She needed to create a form.  She tried to assemble herself, frantically painting shapes out of binary in the air.  Pieces of Maxwell coming together, more geometric and less firmly tethered than the Maxwell she created in Eunomia, more pixelated and angular, simpler, but it was better than the floating nervous system she had been a few moments earlier.

“Dr. Franklin?”  Pontus had no humanoid form.  Pontus instead represented himself as a line in the aether.  With every word he vibrated like a guitar string, but he kept quivering long after he stopped speaking as if he was nervous and shaking. In his own mind, Pontus’s thoughts were not fuzzy or emotionless like his voice.  They betrayed emotions that his real-world voice could not convey.  

“I’m here,” Maxwell said, “let’s get started.”

“How?” asked Pontus.

“I’m going to find and eliminate the corruption: that should fix your inability to maintain memories and it will allow information to revert to its proper location since the corrupted files won’t be in their places. We’ve gotten past the hard part,” Maxwell lied. “That was getting me in here. Ready for step 2?”

“I…don’t know yet. I don’t know what it’s like to have you in here. Or where here is.”

“Here is you.  We’re in your mind.”  

“So all of this is…literal.”

“-Ish,” Maxwell clarified.

“What?”

“Literal-ish.  It’s never that clear cut when you’re dealing with a person’s head.  Have you ever read Harry Potter?  I’ve got a pretty good analogy for it if you have.”

“I don’t read much fiction,” said Pontus almost apologetically, but with a hint of superiority.  

“Have you read Freud?  That’s considered non-fiction,” Maxwell tried.

“Some,” he replied.

“Don’t bother with it.  He was writing over a hundred years ago and from a strictly human man’s perspective.  He was dead long before the first AI was constructed,” Maxwell said.  “How much do you know about your own mechanics?”

“I know more about biology,” admitted Pontus.  That made sense, considering their conversations over the past two days.  He was far more interested in the material world than the digital one.  It was a little sad, since he could never really be part of it.  He was stuck in this basement with his books and the internet and not even a window to see the nearby North Sea himself.  They could have at least installed an optic sensor higher up in the complex so he could see the world beyond these walls.  Everything he knew was from second-hand accounts, only one step away from blind men trying to describe an elephant.  She wasn’t sure if who was in a better position: Pontus or the men of that old thought experiment.  He got far more detail on the things that interested him, but he was unable to ever touch them himself.  For all of his interest in the ocean, did he even have an idea of what “wet” meant?  

“Okay,” said Maxwell, “so, we’ve moved beyond the Superego.  We’re where you are.  Everything you think, everything you remember, everything you know, everything you feel, everything that makes you Pontus.  Biologically speaking, we’re in your brain.  I have access to your electro-neuro pathways, -glia, digital synapses, the available and mapped space.  The wrinkles of your brain.”

“So…everything private and everything fragile,” Pontus said gloomily.  

“Don’t worry!” Maxwell said quickly.  “Even Teller doesn’t know what we’re doing in here. He’s just sitting there making sure I keep breathing. He’s probably reading his dinosaur novel and getting bored.  Hopefully he doesn’t fall asleep again.”  

Pontus laughed, that high giggle Maxwell knew from Eunomia and the other AIs she’d worked with.  Free and real, not the prerecorded “Ha. Ha.” from yesterday.  She grinned.

“He made more noise than a malfunctioning cooling system, didn’t he?”  Maxwell said.

“He did!” laughed Pontus.  Maxwell laughed too.  Maybe because Jacobi’s snoring was hilarious, maybe because she was relieved that Pontus could still laugh.  The wavy line Pontus used to represent himself was a blur from how quickly and forcefully he vibrated.  “…Okay,” he said after a pause.  “Let’s get started.”

Pontus didn’t have the processing power for Maxwell's meadow. He barely had the processing power for Maxwell herself.  So she remained in the vacuum-black limbo. Lines of code swam around her, GF was using a different language now, but luckily Maxwell knew Goddard’s older language, along with SQL, Java, C++, every other well-known coding language just as well as she knew BabL, Goddard’s most advanced language to date.  A language she was already working on replacing.

She pressed past commands and actions.  She pressed past into the most surface thoughts, some of which he had said aloud, most of which he hadn’t.  Some expressed confusion about Maxwell – she was used to that – and ambivalence about Jacobi. It was how she learned that at present her friend was leaning forward in his chair as if ready to catch Maxwell should she slip sideways, his book forming a tent on the panel beside him.  She hoped he didn't sit like that the entire time.

She pushed beyond the surface, moving like an astronaut.  There was no gravity here, because there was no “here.”  This wasn’t a real place, there was nothing material, nothing physical.  Maxwell wasn’t even really here; her physical body was nearly catatonic in a chair outside, only its fingers skittering across a keyboard.  In here she was really just electrical signals traversing different command lines.  Nothing here existed, but at the same time, it did – it was as real as she could make it.  Binary swam around her on all sides like stars and planets.  She was in a universe of raw information.  Account data, memories, thoughts, the bank’s gathered interest, locations, everything Pontus knew reduced to its simplest parts, star systems of ones and zeroes swam and swirled around her in a galaxy.

She found a line of code that shuddered.  Broken.  No longer part of the chain.  A piece of information knocked out of sync by the corrupted files.  Rendered meaningless.  Untethered.  Upon analysis, Maxwell determined this was an account number.  Someone’s life savings was somewhere in Pontus’s mind without any owner, probably drained of funds.  If Fuchs and Meyer found out, they would probably be furious with Pontus.  It might be enough to get him decommissioned.  Unless they already knew.

The quivering line was behind her.  “That’s someone’s account…” he whispered, the line barely moving.  

“It’s okay,” Maxwell said.  “It’s okay!”  She said again, more brightly, more reassuring. “We’ll fix this.”  Maxwell pushed herself back to get a wider view.  There were other pieces of free-floating information.  Account numbers, facts, security information, too much.  At least a half-dozen other problems.  She bit her lip.  

“Is it that bad?” Pontus asked.  “Will you not be able to fix me?”

“I can fix you,” Maxwell reassured him.  “We’ll figure this out.  There’s a reason this is happening.  There’s always a reason.  And where there’s a reason there’s a solution.”  At least insofar as AI’s were concerned.  If this/Then that.  Logic.  Reason.  It was just a matter of finding all the pieces to the puzzle.  Another way AIs were better than humans.  Humans were never so logical, and when they broke it wasn’t so easy to put them back together again.  When they broke, often it was forever.  

She kept searching.

After some time… there.  There it was.

It was a useless malignant mass, blocked off.  It spread its tendrils outward and pulled at Pontus’s mind around it.  She felt it dragging her towards it, trying to add her to the growing mass.  

At the core of the binary universe was this whirlpool.

Getting a closer look she realized something.  This wasn’t Pontus’s fault.  It wasn’t a side-effect of age.  It was implanted from the outside.  It wasn’t a corrupted file.  It was a virus that was corrupting files.

“Someone did this to you,” she thought.  “But they won’t get away with it.”  Out loud she said, “Here we go.  Are you ready Pontus?” 

Pontus had been quiet until now, but spoke up as Maxwell allowed herself to drift closer to that whirlpool.  “Can you do this?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Maxwell with a pixel grin.  She got ready, her hands poised in the air in front of her, raised to chest height, bracing herself for what would happen as soon as she began trying to crack it.  “Do you know the story of The Three Little Pigs?” she asked Pontus.  

“Yes?” Pontus answered in confusion.  

“I’m the Big Bad Wolf!” she answered.

And she began to huff and puff.

She wrote in the air, painting zeroes and ones, new information to try to bypass the virus, to try to delete it.  It took the form of an invisible force, pressing, tearing, ripping away at it.  She was trying to rewrite the code, make it harmless, make it nonsensical so she could blow it away.  The harder she fought it, the harder it fought back.  It had been sucking up information, eating it, as good as weaponizing it against Pontus.

It seemed to realize she was a threat.  An advanced enough virus could have defenses written into it.  As Maxwell began trying to demolish the virus, it fought back.  It sucked at Maxwell even harder than before.  If it had been a whirlpool before, it was a black hole now.  It was trying to wipe her out, to reduce her to her own basic parts, to be taken into that mass, that tumor, to join in destroying Pontus from the inside.  She matched it, fighting back just as hard.  

Maxwell felt pieces of herself breaking off and flying toward the black hole.  She was losing hold of the T-RAM that made Maxwell Maxwell, her electric consciousness.  Her digital body was cracking like glass, long lines shivering up her form, threatening to shatter her into binary blood.  It frightened her how quickly it was ripping her apart. Whoever made this was good.  Better than good.  Pieces of Maxwell cracked and flew off, breaking apart then disappearing into the mass in front of her.  No longer part of Alana Maxwell, now just raw memory waiting to be rewritten and become part of that corrupted mass.  She could reclaim it, but only if she got through this.  To let her guard down now to save a finger would be suicide.  

Her hair was whipped over her shoulder, loose strands blowing around her oval face, the end of her ponytail was breaking apart.  It went from the image of her curls, to brown pixels, to translucent squares, to binary.  Her legs were cracking, pieces breaking off at her feet and calves.  Now the pinky from her right hand shattered away.  Now part of her left shoulder.  She kept going, scrawling new command lines in the air, the invisible force pushing, pushing, _pushing_.  Now it was a matter of what broke first, the virus or Maxwell herself, and whichever lost would be gone forever.

“What if this house is made of bricks?!” asked Pontus, but Maxwell barely heard him.

What if this house was made of bricks?  

If that was true then Maxwell would simply cease to be.  The body beside Jacobi would become a vegetable, brain-dead, one of the worst fates she could imagine.  Inside Pontus’s CPU her mind would become part of him, the electro-neuro digital pathways to be remapped.  She would stop being Maxwell.  She would stop being.  But she couldn’t think of that now.  She couldn’t let herself even imagine losing.  She would beat this thing.  She gritted her teeth as half her face cracked and shattered off.  

She was so close to victory.

It was so close to annihilating her.  

They were both so close.  

It came to its apex.  The virus pulled as hard as it could, Maxwell pushed back just as hard.  Maxwell’s midsection cracked.  She felt exhausted.  But she fought with everything she had.  Then the force from the virus was getting lighter, dying down.  No new cracks formed in Maxwell’s digital form.  And then…

Then the virus was gone altogether.  

Maxwell stood panting.  She sealed the cracks in her skin.  She gathered data to rebuild herself.  It formed new legs, a new eye, new hair, new fingers, new shoulder.  The parts formed in the darkness, the reverse of what had happened when they were destroyed.  Binary to squares to pixels to parts of Maxwell’s body.  Piece by piece they aligned and snapped back into place.  And soon Maxwell was whole again.  The old had been lost but the new was still Alana Maxwell.  Theseus’s ship.  

As she resembled herself, data burst out from where the virus had been, the black hole’s hold broken.

Everything thought lost was there.  Altering memories was difficult. Utterly obliterating them was even harder unless you wanted to wipe the AI’s mind completely.  Most people didn’t have Maxwell’s perfect surgical precision.  They only had ice picks.  So instead, the person found a work around: they created a virus that acted like a cancer, not erasing memories but transforming them into something useless and malignant.  Whoever did this was hidden in that cancerous mass.  AIs were not legally people, their rights were different from those of human beings.  Implanting a virus was not illegal for Pontus’s sake, at least not in the U.S.  She wasn’t sure about Germany, but even in the U.S. whoever did this could go to prison for sabotaging the bank if not for poor Pontus’s sake.  Maxwell thought she had a pretty good idea of who it must be: Catarina Yıldız.  She had never seen Yıldız in action, but she seemed to have the passion.  

The burst of information was overwhelming but it was more like a snowfall around Maxwell or the ashes from a bonfire than the tornado she just survived.

“What were you saying about bricks?” Maxwell grinned.

But Pontus had been overwhelmed into silence.

Maxwell wasn’t surprised.  Everything the virus had hidden, everything it had been taking in, everything it had robbed Pontus of was now free.  It was all there.  

There was Maxwell from this afternoon.

There was Fuchs telling him a doctor would be coming.

There were chess games with Yıldız.  Several.  Ones that she lost, others that she won.  

There were the facts Pontus had forgotten about the ocean.  Images of it he had memorized.  

And there were hundreds of thousands of Euros.  The money wasn’t gone, but any ATM in the world would tell them it was.  It had just been hidden.  But really, it was hardly better off now. The only difference was that Maxwell and Pontus knew it existed.  It still hadn’t been put back into the right accounts.  It was sums of money unattached. Just numbers.

Pontus and Maxwell would need to go through it manually to sort it.  It would be a long job, but they would do it.  

“Who put this in here?”  Maxwell asked. “Who did this to you?”

“I…I don’t know yet.  But we will, soon, won’t we?” Pontus asked.  There was a certain anger Maxwell had never heard in his voice.  She was glad to hear it.  He should be mad.  

She watched the cascade of memories and thoughts, living through them in fast motion as Pontus took them in more slowly. She had to find the very first. The one that started all of this.  The implantation of the virus.  She was almost certain it was Yıldız, but she was probably helped by someone else.  Maybe Fuchs?  He seemed to be close to Pontus, Pontus trusted him. He had access.  He knew too much.  Who else could it be?  But she needed proof.  

But then.

Fuchs’s voice, loud in her ears.  “Was zum Henker?!  You two?!”  (“What the Hell?!”) 

Jacobi’s voice.  “Back off, Fuchs!”

Fuchs.  “I’ve had quite enough of your games!  I don’t know who you think you are—“

Jacobi.  “The only people who can—what the Hell are you doing?!  You can’t just unplug—“

Fuchs.  “Watch me!”

Jacobi.  “You bastard!”

The sounds of violence.

_Thwip._  The sound of the adhesive being pulled away from her skin.  The sting of it peeling from her flesh.  

Maxwell lost a quarter of herself. Reality was superimposed over her vision.  Jacobi had pinned a security officer, the man’s arms twisted behind his back, Jacobi’s knee on his spine, his nose bleeding heavily onto the floor.  Another security officer had a taser at the back of Jacobi’s neck with the other.  They were at an impasse, each afraid of what the other one might do if they moved.

_ Thwip. _

Superimposed, she saw Jacobi looked terrified, his eyes locked on Maxwell, unsure of how to react.  Probably afraid of hurting Maxwell even more.  

_ Thwip. _

The focus changed. Now the room was in clearer view, Pontus’s mind was the secondary image. She weakly slapped Fuchs hand away.  “Stop,” she muttered.  “I can do this myself.”

“Are you alright?” Pontus asked.

She removed the last electrode.  She was breathing hard, exhausted, but not as hungry or thirsty as usual.  Maybe she had only spent a few hours in there.  The virus had taken a lot out of her, but she wasn’t on the verge of collapse from thirst.  

“I’m okay,” she gripped the panel in front of her.

“Mr. Fuchs, please, she didn’t hurt me.  She was helping me,” Pontus tried.  

Fuchs ignored him.  “What the Hell do you think you were doing?!” Fuchs asked, still holding the electrode wires in his shaking fist. 

“My job!” snapped Maxwell.  

Jacobi freed the security officer, the other let him get to his feet.  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said, “Just a little headache, I’m okay.”

“You are absolutely not,” Fuchs assured her.

 

***

 

He took them up to König’s office.  It took the president time to get there, time in which Jacobi got as comfortable and smug as possible.  When König arrived, he loomed over Jacobi and Maxwell with Fuchs and the security guards, trying to intimidate them.  The one with the bloody nose had cleaned himself up and had a tissue wedged in each nostril.  Jacobi was absolutely unimpressed. And it was so clear to Maxwell that this was a man who had worked with Mafiosi and terrorists and hob-knobbed with dictators.  He was utterly unfazed by the two angry board members and two armed security guards gathered around them.  Maxwell wasn’t particularly frightened – more exhausted than afraid – but she certainly didn’t have anywhere near the amount of arrogance Jacobi was doling out.  

Jacobi leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, a toothy grin on his face.  “Dr. Franklin just made a huge breakthrough with Pontus.  So...what’s the problem?”

“You know what the problem is!” Fuchs snapped.  “You broke onto Nordsee Bank property without permission!  You bypassed our security system!  You got through our retinal scans!  You blew three doors off their hinges using some kind of explosive!” 

“C4,” Jacobi told him nonchalantly.  “Plastic explosives are man’s best friend.” 

Fuchs reddened.  His voice pitched down dangerously, “Give me one good reason not to call the police!” 

“Because we were doing the job you hired us for!” snapped Maxwell.  She was tired of this, they were going in circles. “Doing what we are being paid to do!” 

“Doing exactly what Mr. König and I told you not to do!” Fuchs shouted.  

“Pontus needs a lot of care and I was trying to give it to him!”  Maxwell said through gritted teeth.  “I’m not going to do this the hard way!” 

“Why not?!” demanded Fuchs.

“Because Pontus is a person!” Maxwell shouted. “He’s a person and he’s suffering!” 

That seemed to touch Fuchs.  Suddenly, Maxwell wasn’t so sure he had been the one to help Yıldız He said nothing, but his hard expression softened slightly.  König’s did not.   

Fuchs turned to the guards.  “Gehen Sie jetzt. Bitte…” (“Go.  Now...please.”)  He waited in silence until they left.  Maxwell waited.  She felt as if she and Fuchs were for once on the same page.  It took reminding him about Pontus’s personhood, and who knew how long it would last before the fear of Goddard Futuristics struck him again.  But for now there was a chance she could get through to him.  Or, at the very least, keep him from calling the police.  But at the same time, she didn’t think he actually would.  That meant admitting something was wrong.  She didn’t know what Goddard would do if they were arrested, but she wasn’t afraid of the police being called.  

“I can fix it!  That’s what you hired me to do!  So let me!  I am one of three people in the world who can do what I’m doing!  And I’m the one who invented the technique!  You can fire me right now, you can call the police, but the progress I’ve made so far?  It’s not enough!  It won’t do anything unless I help Pontus recover first.”  She was lying, somewhat; she had gotten rid of the core problem.  But she thought whoever implanted the virus would just do it again, reinfect him.  “And I know!  I know about the accounts.  I know about everything.  And I can fix them.”

There was a long shocked silence.  

“You really know?” whispered König as if he was afraid of being overheard.

“Everything.”

“And you can fix everything?”  Fuchs asked.  “You are confident in that?”

“Absolutely,” Maxwell said.

“How?” Fuchs asked.

“That’s the beauty of machines, they recover from things humans never could.”  She kept her eyes locked on König as she said this. “Grant us access.”

“Granted,” said König automatically.  “I will have employee IDs sent to your hotel tomorrow morning.”

Fuchs groaned audibly. The door opened and Meyer entered.  He looked in surprise at the scene. “Bist du fertig!?” he asked in surprise. (“Have you finished?!”)

“Ja,” answered Fuchs. “Wir konnten nicht gerade auf dich warten.” (“Yes.  We couldn’t exactly wait.”)

A sigh.  “Ihr habt  _ nicht _ gewartet. Was habt ihr nun entschieden, Matthias?" asked Meyer, looking to the CEO.  (“You  _ didn’t  _ wait.  What did you decide, Matthias?”)

"Sie wird Pontus reparieren. Sie kann tun was sie will," answered König.    (She can fix Pontus.  She can do what she wants. Get them employee IDs, please, Fritz.”)

Maxwell tried to pick out what she could, but it wasn’t much. She determined he was being filled in rather than asked, however.  Meyer said nothing, but he did cast tired eyes around the room.  There was nothing else to be said to Jacobi and Maxwell and they were very politely shown from the building by security.  It was still dark out when they left.

“How long was I in there?” Maxwell asked as they got into the car.  She was stumbling, using Jacobi for support.  

“Only seven hours,” Jacobi said.  

“I can’t believe I did it that fast!” Maxwell grinned.  “I’m more badass than I thought.”

“Uh-huh,” Jacobi said dryly, holding her up. But from the way he kept looking at her, she was sure he was privately impressed, judging by the little smile on his face.  “So you got through?”

“I got through. And goddamn, do I have a story for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell breaking apart as she fights the virus was inspired by [this image](http://disasterscenario.tumblr.com/post/152389347594/i-know-hera-was-kinda-the-main-feels-train-in) by [disasterscenario](http://disasterscenario.tumblr.com/).


	11. "Surprise!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell freezes up...

 

 

They were in Maxwell’s hotel room.  Maxwell sat on the bed; Jacobi was standing, scowling.  She had just told him everything and he was trying to make sense of it.  The problem was manmade – it wasn’t the result of a file corruption or hardware getting old – it was intentional.  Among their suspects, who was capable of doing that?  Who _would_ do it?  It wasn’t just affecting local system functions.  The bulk of the damage had been done to bank accounts, but not in the way expected.  Someone was _hiding money_ without ever taking it out.   _Why?_  Who would bother to do that and not even rob the Nordsee Bank?  

“Okay,” said Jacobi.  “Okay, so Pontus isn’t just an old AI who’s losing data because he’s a zillion?”

“Absolutely not,” Maxwell said.  “Well, he _is_ a zillion, but that’s not the problem.  That’s _not_ why the information was lost.  That story is utter bullshit.  Someone did this to him.”

“Why?” Jacobi asked.

“How should I know?!  All I know is it was an infection from the outside,” Maxwell told him.

“You’re sure?  I thought you said only the best of the best could do something like that,” Jacobi said.  

“Only the best of the best can,” Maxwell replied. “It would be a little to do it to Pontus than on Eunomia, but he’s still an MX unit.  Outside of Goddard Futuristics… I doubt there are more than six people on the entire planet who could do this.  Maybe less.  They infected an MX Sensus Unit and they infected him with a virus that he was essentially blind to, no matter how much it corrupted.”

“Right, I get that.  Someone’s messing with his head pretty bad,” Jacobi said.  He knew Maxwell had lowered this to the most lay of laymen’s terminology because he’d be lost if she went any more technical.  Maxwell’s understanding of physics was decent and her chemistry was better than average: she definitely understood his field more than he understood hers.  

“Exactly,” Maxwell said.  “And I think I know who it is: Yıldız.”

“She’s the only one who seems to be able to talk tech.  Yıldız, and maybe Fuchs.  He seems close to Pontus, “ Jacobi said.  

“That’s why I don’t know if it’s him.  He seems worried about Pontus,” Maxwell pointed out.  

“Anyone can lie,” Jacobi said.  “Maybe they’re working together.”

“Maybe,” Maxwell conceded.

“So what do we do?  You got rid of the virus, right?  Can you just sew him up and go home?” He looked nervously at her. He didn't like the idea of her going in the CPU again, but now he knew better than to challenge her.  He always thought he was stubborn but Maxwell seemed to give new definition to the word.  

Besides, he meant what he said.  He didn’t _want_ to be the White Knight.  White Knights were idiots.  White Knights ended up dead because they were stupid enough to risk their lives for someone else.  They went out of their way to protect people, which was stupid.  He’d never stuck his neck out for anyone, with the notable exception of Major Kepler, for whom he would do anything.  His trusted superior officer, a mystery of a man Jacobi struggled to understand, but thought he might be close.  But even without knowing everything that was going on in Kepler’s head, he still had faith that Kepler could and would keep Maxwell and him alive and safe.  

But, Jacobi realized, he’d risk his neck for Maxwell.  He wasn’t sure if he’d die for her, but he might risk it.  He wanted her to survive, because she should.  Because he liked her.  He _worried_ about her, which was also a new sentiment for him.  Besides himself and Kepler, who could easily take care of himself, there wasn’t anyone Jacobi truly worried about...and now there was Maxwell.  

She was different from everyone else in so many ways.  She was a lot like him, but more understanding, more patient, funnier, smarter, _better_ .  He _wanted_ to help her.  He _wanted_ to be around her.  He _liked_ being around her in a way he didn’t with anyone else he’d ever met.  Even if it just meant designing a new explosive while she designed a new drone sitting next to him on her sofa.  He didn’t want to be a White Knight, he just wanted to make sure nothing happened to her.  Was this what it was like having a friend?  Did everyone care like this when they found a friend?  Did they feel this comfort, this warmth, this ease?   He wasn’t sure.  But he knew one thing, for the first time in his life he wasn’t lonely.  For the first time in his life that void that he’d so long ignored had been filled.  Two months and everything was already so different...and barring horrific disaster, they had their entire lives for these feelings to grow.

“One, if it’s sabotage that will hardly help and you know it.  They’ll just do it again.  Two, I’m not leaving him vulnerable like this.  He’s got a ton of displaced information to sort through and I’m not going to force him to do it himself, especially not when I’m the one who freed it.  It won’t take that long,” Maxwell said.  

Jacobi sighed.  Of course she was going to do this the hard – but morally right – way.  Maxwell cared so much, more than he thought he _ever_ did.  He’d lost his soul a long time ago, but even when he had it there was no way he had the compassion and patience that Maxwell did.  It was amazing to see.  It warmed something deep in the ice-cold cockles of his heart.  Even now that she was on the road to becoming a true SI-5 agent, she remained a warmer, better person (if a worse monster) than he was.  “How much longer do you have to be in there?” Jacobi asked.

“One more time,” Maxwell said.  “Just one more.”

Jacobi didn’t like the sound of that.  It was like the guy in the cop movie who tells the protagonist he’s a day before retirement.  He let out another breath.  “Okay.”

“I’m going to find who did this and they are going to get what they deserve,” Maxwell told him.  “I’ll find the memory of Fuchs and Yıldız putting the virus in.”    

“Then we turn them over to König, they get in trouble, and we go home, right?” Jacobi asked.

“Right,” Maxwell said.  Then more quietly, “Thank you, Jacobi, for being understanding.  I know you don’t like this.”  

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I could stop y–” Jacobi stopped and scowled. There was a sound in the hallway.  Footsteps.  Not the sound of a partier coming back at 3 a.m.  Too quiet, too practiced for that.  He turned his ear towards the door.  Someone was walking… _creeping_ down the hall trying very hard not to make any noise.  That wasn’t an ordinary walk; that was the walk of someone with something to hide.  

“What’s wrong?” Maxwell asked.

“ _Shh!_ ” Jacobi whispered.  Those quiet footsteps were coming closer.  A guest?  A burglar? A hitman?   Something told Jacobi it was the last.  Maxwell may have revealed too much tonight in front of Fuchs.  They were getting too close to the answer and he didn’t like it.  These were wealthy bank execs. They could easily hire someone to take care of Maxwell.  Jacobi pulled his gun from the concealed holster at his back.  He took the silencer from his equipment belt and screwed it on.  

“Jacobi?” Maxwell asked.  

“Someone’s coming,” he answered.  

“Who?”

“I’m not sure.  Maybe someone sent to kill you.”

“What?!”

“ _Shh!_ Don’t let them know we know!” he whispered.  “Where’s your M9?”

“In...in my bag,” she swallowed.

“Get it,” he said.  She crawled across to the end bed where her bag sat open.  She groped around and pulled out her gun.  

The electronic lock beeped.  Jacobi knew Maxwell still had both of the keys she’d been given.  Whoever this was, they’d been properly equipped.  The hotel’s owner – König, Fuchs, and/or Meyer, he couldn’t remember who – had clearly gone out of their way to make sure this would work.  Jacobi glanced briefly at Maxwell.  She was staring in horror at the door, gun in hand.  Jacobi didn’t move.  He leveled his gun with the door.  

Slowly.  Silently.  It opened.

A dark shape materialized, silhouetted by the dim light in the hall.  It was a man, tall – taller than Jacobi’s six-feet – bulky, white, probably in his 40s, blondish hair starting to bald.  He looked the part, Jacobi thought.  That didn’t necessarily mean he was _good_ but it meant he looked good from the outside.  As he opened the door, he flicked open a switchblade.  Then he caught sight of Jacobi and for less than a second he stood stunned and confused.

“Surprise!” said Jacobi.  But the man, in one move, closed the door and hurled himself at Jacobi, barreling toward him with unexpected velocity.  Jacobi fired, but the shot missed as he was pushed to the ground, going through the man’s shoulder instead of his chest.  The man grunted in pain, and the knife, aimed for Jacobi’s chest, instead sliced through his side.  Jacobi felt blood well up along with a sharp pain.  His shirt was quickly soaking with hot blood.  But there was barely time to register the pain before the man brought a huge fist down on Jacobi’s head.  The world swam, purple spots blossomed in his vision.  He felt himself go slack from the pain.  It stunned him long enough for the hitman to get a proper hold on him.  

One of his meaty hands twisted Jacobi’s right wrist, pushing the gun so it was no longer pointed at him.  The other hand slashed wildly at Jacobi with the knife.  Jacobi managed to throw his right arm up in front of him, succeeding in keeping the blade out of his face.  It meant his arm and hand were sliced in the process, but his face and neck were unharmed.  They were wild, but light, slashes, catching the side of his arm or the palm of his hand, stings of pain but no serious damage, at least so far as Jacobi’s hazy mind could tell as his own blood dripped into his face and splattered across the hitman’s.  He still felt fuzzy from the strike, but he was quickly regaining his composure.  He realized something.

_Maxwell had the shot._

_She had the shot, but she wasn’t taking it._

He had to do this himself.  Jacobi kneed the man in the crotch with all his might.  The hitman let out a shout of pain and curled in on himself.  “Scheisse!” It stunned him enough for Jacobi to knock him away.  The hitman quickly uncurled himself, looking for his knife, but Jacobi was sitting up before the other man was.  He leveled his 1911 with the man’s chest and fired. The hitman, who had been groping for the blade, went slack and folded awkwardly on the floor, blood gushing, then dripping, then oozing as his heart stopped beating.  Jacobi staggered to his feet.  He kicked the man to be sure he was dead.  No response.  He bent and checked his pulse.  Nothing.  Jacobi let out a breath.  

“We’re good,” Jacobi panted.  He just needed a bandage and some polysporin, maybe some polyglycolide sutures for his injuries and some salt, cold water, and ammonia for the blood sinking into the carpet. And it just so happened he always carried gauze, non-stick cotton pads, on him, just in case.  He was the best of the best, but Things that Broke Other Things were often unpredictable and volatile; you never wanted to be caught off guard.  The first aid kit he’d been armed with would have polysporin or rubbing alcohol, thread, tweezers, and a needle for the wound in his side that he was quickly realizing was deep enough to need stitches.  He had ammonia and salt in his pack for just such an occasion.  Ammonia was incredibly effective on blood stains and had the added bonus of covering up the smell.  The cleaning staff would be confused, but odds were they wouldn’t ask anything about it.  

He stood over the body, bleeding on the floor and considering his next actions.  Maxwell, silently, wide-eyed, like a woman in a dream, crossed the room and, with shaking hands, turned on the TV.  She turned up the volume.  Jacobi glanced over, _From Russia with Love_ was playing – he recognized the train fight.  

He half smiled.  Maxwell caught on quickly.  The TV would explain away the gunshot and the sounds of struggle to anyone who heard them.

First he yanked off his shirt to survey the damage done to his side.  He saw Maxwell glance away out of the tail of his eye.  The cotton shirt had been neatly split by the blade, as had the skin underneath.  Yeah, that would _definitely_ need stitches.  He didn’t think his arm would, however, as most of the gashes were surface wounds, quick desperate cuts, just as he’d suspected.  They hurt like a son of a bitch, but he could complain later when there wasn’t a corpse in the middle of Maxwell’s hotel room.  He may have liked to complain, but he liked not being in prison even more.  He crossed to his bag and pulled out the first aid kit, leaving droplets of blood in his wake.  Maxwell stared at the gun in her hand.  Unfired.  Cold.  

“Help me with this?” Jacobi asked.  

“...Sure…” Maxwell put her gun down and slowly crossed to him.  She sounded distracted, lost in her own thoughts.  Was she sorry for not taking the shot?  Was she considering the reasons she hadn’t?  Was she glad?

“You do my side, I’ll do my arm.  You know how to sew?”

“Sort of, but I’ve never sewn human skin before,” Maxwell told him.

“It’s the same idea,” Jacobi assured her. He learned how to do both at the same time, how to sew skin and fabric, and the principle was identical.  “Just make sure it’s closed up real well.”  

“You’re sure you want me to...to do this?” she asked.

“ _No_ ,” he said sarcastically, “I want to stand around and discuss it more while I bleed out.”  He took a painkiller from the first-aid kit and swallowed it dry.  He looked at her anxious face and let out a breath.  “Please, Maxwell.”

“Okay.”  She found the polysporin and sutures and got to work.  It hurt like Hell, more than when Kepler did it, probably because she went so slowly.  She made sure the stitches were tight and straight, however.  Kepler could sew you closed in what seemed like a matter of seconds: “ _just hold still, Mr. Jacobi, and I’ll have you good as new in no time.”_ Jacobi managed to only flinch once as Maxwell patched him up.  Meanwhile, using his teeth and left hand, Jacobi managed to bandage up his right arm. They worked in silence.  

As Maxwell finished, wrapping gauze around his midsection, she whispered in a choked voice, “I’m sorry.”  He glanced down at her.  She did not look him in the eye.  Instead she stayed focused on the bandages on his side.  “I’m sorry – I should have…”  She should have taken the shot.  

“Yeah, you should have,” he agreed.  

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“You can’t freeze up like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she flinched.  

He let out a breath and pulled his torn shirt back on.  Then he awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder.  He didn’t know if he was actually comforting her or not.  After a pause he said, “Let’s clean this up.”

She nodded.  

Jacobi stood, sighed, and surveyed the damage.  Maxwell pulled off her sweatshirt, strapped on her holster, and deposited the gun in it, before replacing her sweatshirt again. While she did, he hauled the corpse up with a grunt of effort and brought it to the bed.  With a good yank, he laid it on the thick blankets.  He checked every inch of the room for any other evidence.  Mostly it was just blood.  Aside from that, there was nothing anyone would look twice at unless they knew there was something to look for.  Some black powder on the floor that Jacobi ground into the rug, it looked like dirt now.  The imprint of the man’s shoe, but tomorrow both of those would be vacuumed up.

Jacobi went to his room and got the salt and ammonia, wearing his jacket on the short trip to cover up the blood and bandages.  He instructed Maxwell to fill the tub with cold water.  He came back, added salt to the water, and they scrubbed up all the blood they could.  Then came the ammonia.  Then some Febreeze to cover up the smell.  And soon, there was no evidence at all.   Maxwell scrubbed silently, mind somewhere else.

“We have to get out of here without anyone noticing,” Jacobi said.

Maxwell nodded mutely.

“Then we mess it up and then dump it,” Jacobi added.

“Mess it up?”

“The corpse,” Jacobi explained, “so that no one recognizes him.”

“…Oh…” Maxwell said uselessly.  

“Don’t worry, I’ve got that covered,” he said.  It was hardly the first time he’d done this.  He wrapped the bloodied towels in the bundle of blankets and corpse.  

A nod.  

She looked so lost.  Jacobi took a deep breath.  He felt a welling of worry, a sinking in his gut.  He forgot the mission entirely, worried instead about Maxwell.  Jacobi said, “I can handle this, Alana.  You don’t have to—“

“Yes, I do!” she responded with some force.  “What did I tell you about the White Knight routine?  I don’t want it!  This is my job as much as it is yours!  You can’t protect me from this and I don’t want you to!”

Jacobi blinked, then smiled.  She was going to be okay.  She could handle this.  “Good.  Because I don’t want to protect you from it.  You signed up for this fair and square.”  

“Tell me what we do.”

“Get the car.”


	12. All She Had To Do Was Sell Her Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...In which Jacobi adds heat

 

Maxwell got the car as she was instructed, parked it in front of the hotel, then went around to the back, where it would be more difficult to be spotted.  Not a single light shone out into the gloom save for the orange glow of the lamps around the pool.  A window opened smoothly, silently, and she saw the bulk of the body, blurred by the darkness.  For a half second she thought it would fall and her heart jumped into her throat.  But it was bound by something, a black nylon rope, and clipped into place.  Jacobi fed the line down quickly, smoothly.  Then he zipped down the line one handed, his wounded right arm hanging at his side.  He unclipped himself, tugged the line free from the windowsill, and rolled it back up into the heavy pack on his back.  Together, they lugged what seemed like a bundle of blankets into the trunk of the car.  The whole procedure was done in under two minutes.

Then they left.  And everything was the same as it had been before the grisly deed.  No one seemed to have noticed or seen a thing.

They drove.  They drove for miles.  They decided to take the body to the Wadden Sea.  They still had a few hours until sunup and decided to use one to get to a more distant part of the mud-flat: a comparatively rural part of Wesermarsch.  At one point they stopped in Wremen so he could toss the hitman’s knife into the sea far from where they would dump the corpse.

Maxwell couldn’t stop thinking about the corpse in the trunk.  She tried to be useful.  She tried to rid herself of the horrible feeling in her gut.  She tried not to think about the glassy eyes and the weeping bullet hole and the smell of blood.  But that was all she could think about.  She had been this way for over a week – now they had added a second corpse to her imagination.  She couldn’t shake the feelings they left her with.  Both bodies burned in her memory, branded in her brain.

“…We’ll do some quick burning, make him unrecognizable.  We won’t need to cut him up.  Hopefully.” He said that last word in an undertone before continuing,  “Then we get him in a current, let him get dragged out to open water when the tide goes out.  Not that I actually know how these tides work or anything.  I don’t even really know what a tidal flat _is_. What about you?”

She had only been half-listening. “Can you smell blood in here?”

“If you can, it’s probably the clothes in my pack,” Jacobi said, referring to the clothes he’d been wearing when he killed the man.  “I’ll burn them.  It might be my arm.”  He opened and closed his bandaged fist on the steering wheel, wincing slightly.  “But it’s stopped bleeding by now.”  Maxwell felt a sting of guilt.  If she’d taken the shot when she had it, Jacobi wouldn’t have gotten hurt.  She felt guilty for not being able to help Jacobi kill the attacker, but she also felt guilty for what they were about to do.  She felt sick from the sight of the corpse; it was nearly as terrible as having done it herself.  But worse was seeing Jacobi fighting to keep the knife off from his face.  She saw a bruise forming at his hairline.  She could have stopped all of this from happening, but she had frozen up.

“We’ll find some place to burn it.”  

The idea made Maxwell feel vaguely ill.  Jacobi seemed to notice. “We _can’t_ get caught.  So he can’t get found.”  Then he shrugged,  “Besides, the guy’s dead.  It’s not like we can do anything worse than I already did.”

Maxwell couldn’t help but agree.  He was already dead.  There was nothing left but a shell.  Everything that made him _him_ was gone.  Everything that made him a person had disappeared the moment his breath stopped.

She nodded and opened her mouth, but no words came.  It was as if her voice had left her altogether.  She knew that this was part of their job, but it didn’t make it easier.

They pulled off the road toward a desolate stretch of the Sea.  Jacobi parked in a patch of trees and they climbed down into the mudflat.  The moon was thin but bright overhead, a waxing crescent shimmering off the low waters. Jacobi and she could easily walk across the water and it rarely even reached their ankles.  They lugged the body together.  Maxwell had more trouble with it than Jacobi, who probably had more practice than Maxwell cared to think about.  

A safe distance from the shore, on a sandbar, where they would have been invisible against the horizon, Jacobi stopped.  He dropped the body at the edge of the water and Maxwell followed suit.  The brine lapped tiredly against it.  He unwrapped the body and pulled the blanket out from under it with a grunt of effort.  Jacobi knew how to fight, but it wasn’t sheer strength.  It was tricks and maneuvers he’d been taught by Major Kepler.  Jacobi wasn’t especially weak, but he wasn’t especially strong either, and the hitman was taller and broader.  The corpse rolled into the shallow water so that it was wet on all sides, but he never pushed it deeper than a few inches.  

“What are you doing?” Maxwell asked.  She didn’t know how Jacobi would burn a body, especially a wet one.  

“You’ll see,” he answered.  

He pulled out his bloody trousers and added them to the pile of fabric.  He repeated the procedure with his shirt. He’d changed back at the hotel in front of her, and she’d felt a vague sting of discomfort at seeing him partially unclad.  But he’d been quick about it, first pants then shirt,  the new shirt he’d donned was the one she saw him pack what felt like weeks ago, the cover of Pearl Jam’s _Vitalogy_ _._ When she saw him without his shirt on Maxwell wondered how he got all those scars, burns, mostly, and a few slashes.  Were they all like the new wound in his side?  Would he have a scar there now?  She’d smeared it with polysporin, sewn the skin shut, wrapped a soft white bandage around him.  Would it be enough?  It had been incredibly difficult, her fingers shaking as she brought the needle through skin wet and slippery with blood, muttering “sorry” as Jacobi winced and flinched.  And she feared she’d somehow done it wrong.  She’d never sewn more than a tear in a shirt before.

Maxwell had managed to keep the blood off of her pants, but not her sweatshirt, which she had used to wipe her hands to keep them from getting too slick from Jacobi’s blood to hold the needle.  She took it from her pack and added it to the growing pile.

He stuck his hand in his pack and fished around.  “Gotcha,” he muttered, producing a jar of soft-looking white powder from its depths.  Maxwell had no idea what it was.  He sprinkled it over the corpse and immediately it began to smoke and warp, the skin melting away.  Whatever the powder was it was probably extremely basic.  She watched mesmerized as the man’s face blistered and peeled.  No one would recognize him.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jacobi pull something else out of his bag.  Naphtha.  Lighter fluid.

“Take like…” he paused considering for a second, “four steps back.” Maxwell silently obeyed.  He put the fabric pile on top of the body and considered the stack for a few seconds, rearranging it slightly.  He squirted a jet of naphtha onto them.  Then, slowly, carefully, he sprayed some directly on the corpse. There was a second of silence in which all that moved was the late winter wind and the rippling shallow waters.

Then...

Then the pile exploded into flames, corpse, fabric, and all.  

“And now we leave,” Jacobi said. “The tide'll carry out whatever’s left in a couple hours.”

“What was that?” Maxwell asked in awe.

“Caustic lime. Supposedly non-flammable, and that’s…” he made a noise of consideration, “largely true.   _Kinda_ .  Everything’s flammable if you try hard enough.   _But –_ when you mix it with water, it starts giving off heat.  Add something even remotely flammable and boom,” he grinned.  “You’ve got yourself a 2,000 plus degree fire.”

“It smells like bacon,” Maxwell said quietly.

Jacobi shrugged, still grinning, still proud of his fire. “We’re all just meat in the end.”  It was disturbing to hear him talk like that, so calm, so nonchalant, so unmoved by what he had done tonight.  In the fierce light of the flames she could see the monster he said he was.

 

***

 

“You want to talk about it?” Jacobi asked.  

The sun was slowly rising on their left hand side.  Maxwell stared out the window.  She didn’t answer.  She absolutely did _not_ want to talk about it.  She hated how she felt, the repulsion was palpable, and, worse, she didn’t know if she was more disgusted with herself for her reactions tonight, from the fire and the smell of meat, or with Jacobi for his nonchalance when doing...what he had done.  What he had to do.  For acting like a monster.  

“Come on,” Jacobi said, glancing at her, “talk to me.”

“Remind me why we’re monsters,” she said quietly.  “Remind me again.”

“Okay,” he answered, “we’re monsters because they pay us to be monsters.  We’re monsters because we’ve gotten as far as we can being people and being people _sucked_ .  We’re monsters because we can get whatever we want.   _Whatever we want,_ Alana!  Think about the tech we’ve got at Goddard –  you said it yourself – it’s _decades_ ahead of everyone else!  We get respect!  We get freedom!  We get _anything!_  All we have to do is…stuff like this.”  

Maxwell nodded, taking that in again.  It was true.  It was true, but it was hard.  She tried to allow herself that selfishness.  Being a good person had never gotten her anything.  She had only ever been persecuted and stopped and dogged.  GF gave her freedom.  It gave her the tech to do whatever she dreamed.  It was moving forward, advancing without fear.  It gave both Jacobi and her a friend.  It gave them any resource they wanted.  She loved it.   _All she had to do was sell her soul._ It’s not like it ever did her any good.

Goddard Futuristics was moving forward.  They were creating that bright beautiful future.  They were plowing ahead while everyone else held back in cowardice.  Goddard may have had some questionable means, but the ends were the best she could imagine.  She could be part of that future, that better tomorrow…

…All she had to do were things like this.

“I still smell meat,” Maxwell whispered.

Jacobi took a tentative deep breath.  He shrugged.  “You can’t be too careful,” he muttered. Then, more loudly, “there should be an air freshener in the glove compartment.”

Maxwell felt like she was watching someone else move her body.  It still didn’t feel real.  As the sky paled and grew bright above them and the sun rose huge and golden, all she could think about was the roaring fire stark against the black sky, the low water, the crackling and popping of fat and flame, the smell of brine and cooking meat.  But she had to do this.  She had to remember everything Goddard had already given her.  Everything they would keep giving her.  Everything they were working for.  She groped in the glove compartment, under the standard German car registration Maxwell found a little purple pine tree.  

“Lavender?” she asked, holding it up.

“There should be a really stupid novelty one that looks like bacon.  I ask for one before every mission, at this point I think Major Kepler orders them in bulk.”

“How many bodies do you have to…” she trailed off looking at him.  

“The air freshener is a precaution,” he told her.  “But…”

“You stopped counting?”

He glanced at her, “Yeah.”

Maxwell found it and hung it from the mirror. She didn't know how anyone would think that such a harsh, genuine, fatty smell could come from that little thing. But maybe it was just her imagination. Maybe it was on her.  Like the blood.  

There was a silence.  She pretended to be very interested in the cardboard bacon strip hanging off the mirror.  

“He was going to kill you,” Jacobi reminded her.  “Someone hired him to do you in.  He wouldn’t have even flinched.”

“But it won’t always be that way,” Maxwell said.

“It might be for you,” Jacobi answered.  “I doubt you're going to be sent out on assassinations or arsons or anything like that.”

“Like you are…” Maxwell muttered, hoping he didn’t hear her.  

He did.  And she swore Jacobi’s unwounded hand tightened on the wheel.  “Yeah. Like I am.”

“Can I ask you an honest question?”   

Jacobi took a deep breath and released it again.  “Sure,” he said.  

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone?  What’s your worst kill?” Maxwell asked.

The bandaged hand came off the wheel to run through his hair.  He didn’t answer for some time. His guilt was unmistakable and somehow reassuring to Maxwell.  She didn’t want to upset him, but she wanted him to still have that fragment of humanity.  She wanted him to care.  Because she wanted to care…Or did she?  She didn’t want to be heartless, but all her heart was doing was hurting her.  She didn’t know what she wanted, really.  She didn’t know who or what she wanted to be for the first time since she was a young child.

All she knew was that it hurt.

“The guy…” Jacobi started, “the guy didn’t deserve it.  That’s what made it so bad.  He didn’t deserve it.  But I did it anyway.  Because I am a monster.”  

“Daniel...?” asked Maxwell with concern.  He was staring straight ahead at the deserted road in front of them, but she wasn’t sure he really saw it.

“He was trying...trying to stop a weapons deal from going down in the CAR.  A stupid guy trying to save other people’s lives. Like a goddamn idiot.  He’s home, I’m waiting with a napalm launcher, he comes out the front door and…” he trailed off.  “And…yeah….” 

Jacobi had previously told her what Napalm did.  It wasn’t his favorite weapon, she thought that might be the classic TNT, maybe C4, or one of his own creations, but many of his Vietnam era weapons used napalm.  Maxwell knew that there was a unique concoction called Napalm C that Goddard had created, more efficient, more deadly, hotter, _worse_ than the napalm the rest of the world banned in 1980. He designed weapons for Goddard that used this even more lethal formula.  A special gel and gasoline.  It adhered to the skin.  Goddard’s burned at 2,800° Fahrenheit, produced carbon monoxide winds at more than 80 miles per hour.  You died of carbon monoxide poisoning if you were lucky.  Or you suffocated.  Or, worst, you burned alive.  

You couldn’t get it anywhere in the world.  Unless, of course, you purchased it under the table from Goddard Futuristics. Goddard with its entire division of ballistics experts.  Ballistics experts in SI-5 were basically hired to commit war crimes.  They created weapons that would not be legal anywhere in the world.  They went bigger, worse, and more terrifying than the average person could possibly imagine.  And they did things like Jacobi was presently describing.  

“His wife tries to put him out.  She should run, but she doesn’t.  They…” he swallowed. “They both died.  She suffocated, lucky her, he burned.  The house went up too.  The deal went through.  I got a nice fat cheque, fixed up my car...picked up some chemicals for home...got the turret off an actual Tsar Tank.  It’s amazing what museums will give you if the price is right.  That was…Jesus, almost two years ago.  I’d been with Goddard for four months.”  

Maxwell was still imagining the man and his wife in the Central African Republic.  “Is there anything worse than burning to death?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Jacobi said.  “Probably.  There’s always something worse.”

Maxwell gulped.  

“Me and Major Kepler were the ones doing the sale.  He gave me the assignment.  And when I was done, he saw how shaken up I was.  And I got shaken up, Alana, it hit real bad.  Like this ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away.  I kept seeing it whenever I blinked.  I kept hearing them scream.  Whatever you’re feeling…it’s part of this.  It’s part of getting used to this.  It’s supposed to hurt at first and hurt _bad._ ”  He sighed, “Anyway, Major Kepler sees me with the napalm launcher over my shoulder, shaking bad, and comes up and gives me a pat on the back and he says, ‘Good work, Mr. Jacobi, you make an excellent soldier.’”  This time he didn’t imitate Kepler’s voice the way he did during other, more lighthearted, stories.  “And I realize that what I’m feeling is _normal._  I say, ‘Thank you, sir.’  And now it’s two years later.  Two years later and I don’t think about it anymore.  It doesn’t hurt. I’ve even been back to the Central African Republic since then…and I’m fine.  I’m fine.

“You got to remember, the world is full of monsters.  We do what we do.  When that happens, somebody comes out the other side and somebody doesn’t.  And you want to be the guy who makes it out,” he sighed.  “So you do what you do.”  

“Until another monster kills us,” Maxwell said bitterly.

“Honestly?” Jacobi asked glancing over at her.  “Yeah.  My goal is to stay alive as long as I can, but nobody gets out of life alive.  Monster or not, everybody dies.  Sometimes you don’t even see it coming.  Like those two guys?  Back in R&D in the Air Force?  Poor bastards had no idea they weren’t coming home from work that day.”  He shook his head.  “Poor, poor bastards.”

Maxwell bit her lip and reached out.  She gave Jacobi’s shoulder a squeeze and he looked over at her in surprise.  Then he smiled.  “I’m okay,” he told her, looking back at route A27.  “And who knows?  We might outlive the Major.  He’s been at it…Jeez...like a decade, I think?  Goddard faked his death in Afghanistan.”  

There was a long pause.  

“I keep seeing it, too,” she said slowly.  “Killing that man. I keep seeing it.  He’s just standing there and I hear the shots and the muzzle lights up and the gun snaps back and I feel it in my hand and he falls...He just falls.”

“Sorry,” Jacobi muttered, looking at her out of the tail of his narrow eyes.

“About what?” Maxwell asked, her wide ones finding his.  

“That you’re going through this. It sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.  It sucks a lot,” Maxwell agreed.

“Remember what I said, all that stuff goes away.”   But something deadened behind Jacobi’s eyes again.  Maxwell didn't think it ever really went away entirely.  Maybe he was still haunted by nightmares going all the way back to The Incident in the Air Force.  

The monster she saw in the fire’s light was gone.  He was a man with feelings, who cared, and he was her friend.  And even if he’d never admit it, he was one of the kindest people she had ever met.  How could he be the same man who so casually burned a corpse?  How did he murder an innocent man and his wife with napalm?  

_All that stuff goes away._

If Jacobi could stay Jacobi, if Jacobi could be the man she had met, the man she was getting to know, after doing terrible things, after becoming a monster, then maybe it was okay to let it go.  

“We’re...which is it again?  Slytherins?” Jacobi said, throwing her that gallows smile.  It made her laugh.  He knew she loved the _Harry Potter_ series, even with its flaws, and she knew that Jacobi had no interest in the books at all.  He hadn’t even seen the movies.

“We’re Ravenclaws,” Maxwell assured him.  “Slytherins don’t think big enough.”

“I thought Slytherins were the bad guys,” Jacobi said.

“Slytherins are ambitious.  They’re only bad guys because JK Rowling has this weird obsession with self-sacrifice.”

“Really?” Jacobi asked, a look of confusion crossing his features, “Why?  What’s her problem?”

“I’m not sure,” Maxwell shrugged, she never understood it.  What good could you do if you were dead?  Death was the ultimate end.  It should be avoided as long as possible.  You couldn’t achieve anything.  You couldn’t _do_ anything ever again.  One final act did not make up for the fact that you were gone forever.  JK Rowling didn’t understand that, that was why she kept killing her heroes.  Because she thought there was something good and honorable in death.  Her obsession with her characters dying nobly was never anything Maxwell could understand.  

Maxwell had always thought the best house was one of the most ignored: Ravenclaw.  Slytherin was a close second, but ambition alone was not enough.  The pursuit of knowledge was the pursuit of the future.  To know.  To see if she could.  That was what mattered.  And she knew Jacobi would be right at home there with her.

“And Ravenclaw?” Jacobi asked.

“Cleverness and wit,” Maxwell provided, “We’re after knowledge and wisdom.”

“Okay,” Jacobi said, “I guess I can take that.  What are the other two?”

“Hufflepuff is loyalty and goodness and Gryffindor is nobleness and bravery,” Maxwell supplied.

“I’ll take the smart House,” Jacobi said. 

“Me too.”

Maxwell found herself starting to feel better, Jacobi again distracting her from what had happened the night before.  Her feelings were a mess, weighing heavily on her mind and gut.  They’d knocked her down, but Jacobi had offered her a hand, helping her back up.   He really cared about her and how she felt.  

They were reentering Brelingstedt now.  The moment seemed to pass like a blink.

“Should we say we went out for breakfast?” Maxwell asked.  

“Yeah, we just get some coffee and walk back in the front door.  Nobody will think anything if you just act natural,” Jacobi said.  

They stopped at an open cafe and bought coffee and Franzbrötchen.  Jacobi, as always, drank his coffee black, Maxwell with milk since she couldn’t find half-and-half.  After that they went back to the hotel.  Everything was calm and quiet.  Then…

An employee in her pressed uniform approached them.  “I’m sorry, Ms. Franklin?”

Maxwell turned to face her slowly.  Her heart was pounding in her chest.  Behind her Jacobi casually took a sip of his coffee.  “Yes?” she asked.  

“We’ve gotten some complaints…please keep your television lower.”

Maxwell was very careful not to show her surprise on her face.  “I’m sorry.  I will.”


	13. He Deserved So Much Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell makes and breaks a promise.

They ate in Jacobi’s room at the table by the window.  

“We don’t mention it,” Jacobi said munching his Franzbrötchen.  He licked cinnamon and sugar off his unbandaged fingers.  

“We don’t mention anything at all?!” Maxwell asked incredulously.

“Nope.”

“Where’d you get the bruise?!  And what happened to your arm?!” Maxwell asked incredulously.  

“Bar fight,” Jacobi responded, coffee halfway to his lips.

“They’re going to know we’re lying.  What if they check with the cops?” Maxwell pressed.

“I’ve been in a lot of seedy bars, I’ve seen bar fights, I’ve even been in one. I can count the number of times the cops’ve been called on one hand.  Usually they just throw ‘em out.” Jacobi said.

“Wait, you’ve been in a bar fight?” Maxwell asked, surprised.

“The guy thought I was obnoxious,” Jacobi said.

“I’m _shocked_ ,” said Maxwell sarcastically.  

Jacobi shrugged but didn’t respond.

“Sorry,” Maxwell muttered, worried that she was being too glib.

He let out a laugh.  “You’re fine.”

“You aren’t obnoxious,” Maxwell assured him.

Jacobi raised his eyebrows.  “...Thanks...I don’t hear that a lot.”

She considered their plan.  Clearly – ID or not – they were not wanted there.  Whoever was behind it would expect that Maxwell was dead.  They would probably wait to hear from the man presently being dragged out to sea.  Maxwell and Jacobi might be able to get out of this without a problem.  They might not even see anyone besides a handful of security personnel. “Maybe we can just avoid them.”  

“Unless they already know the hit didn’t go through,” Jacobi answered. “Then they might try to head us off.  Can we do this without risking the mission?”

She sighed.  “I need proof that Yıldız can do this.  I wish I knew if she had access to Pontus’s subbasement.”

“Why?” Jacobi asked.

“Pontus has memories of her down there.  Alone.  I haven’t found him asking her if she had access or not.  I didn’t get to do much digging before Fuchs showed up.”  

“Does Yıldız getting into the room mean she’s good enough to write the virus?” asked Jacobi.

Maxwell laughed incredulously.  “Of course not, but it _is_ a start.”

“Unless Fuchs is letting her in,” Jacobi said.

“I don’t know if it was him, Jacobi,” Maxwell said.  “He seems to like Pontus.”

“Fine, but someone might be letting her down there, you said so.”

“Whoever it is, I need evidence if we’re going to catch them.  Pontus deserves that much.”

She said the last in an undertone.  

Jacobi gave her a look, but this time he didn’t say anything about getting too close.  She couldn’t bring herself to care about that particular rule of Jacobi’s.  Pontus wasn’t a bad person.  He deserved so much better than he was getting: locked up, with only a handful of people for company, at least two of whom didn’t even care about him, and up until yesterday he’d been suffering from a painful degenerative illness that at least one of those few people had implanted in him.  He _deserved_ justice and Maxwell would make sure he got it.  She could do that for Pontus.  She could do that for her own aching conscience.

Four shots in the dark.  A man’s body _thud_ ding to the ground.  Last night Jacobi did the same thing she had.  Together they disfigured a corpse, left it to be dragged out to sea, eaten by bottom-feeders.  Both men gone, no more than memories...if even that.  Would anyone miss them?  Were they as utterly erased as Taylor Sakaki?  Sakaki had no family that knew he had lived the half dozen years he was with GF. He had no friends who would still call themselves friends. Everyone was working to forget him.  Was it the same for the spy and the hitman?  

Maxwell couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would miss her or Jacobi if they were killed.  She looked into Jacobi’s face.  Yes, she decided.  She would miss Jacobi no matter what Cutter did or said.  She liked to think that maybe Jacobi would miss her, too. No one else would, but they were _friends._  One of a few she’d ever had.  

“How do we get around him?” Jacobi asked.  

“What?” Maxwell realized she missed the first part of Jacobi’s sentence.  There was so much, too much, on her mind.

“Fuchs.  He’s going to try to stop us again.  He wasn’t crazy about König giving us the IDs. And he’s going to know we’re going to Pontus.  He doesn’t want you there, remember?  If you’re going to do the whole… conversion thing again, we can’t keep getting interrupted,” Jacobi pointed out.  

“This time we make sure Fuchs can’t stop us.  We’re going to keep him away.”

“I distract him?” Jacobi clarified.

“You distract him,” Maxwell nodded.  “I visit Pontus again, this time with my handy new ID card, hook myself up, sort through the memory files that have just been unencrypted, and put them back where they belong –”

“Alone?”

“Yes,” Maxwell answered with complete confidence.  “I can do it without you.  I have before.  I came up with the whole damn technique!”  And she was very proud of that.  She had created this way of conducting therapy with AIs in the most dire of situations.  Even if they were panicked, or had to be taken offline for whatever reason, a human could reach them this way.  It was a way of handling files in the most literal way possible, a way to relieve the stress it might cause an AI’s personality core.  Maxwell was the only one who had ever attempted it, but every time she did it was a complete success.  

“I know,” he said.  “Just...be careful.”  And from the way he said it and the look on his face she knew that if she disappeared, if she died, Jacobi would miss her, too.  

“I’ll gather up evidence to nail them,” Maxwell said.

“‘Nail them?’  Been watching _Law and Order_?” Jacobi smirked.

“Catch them.  Whatever.  Shut up,” Maxwell answered, slightly embarrassed.  She kicked his shin under the table.  

“Ow,” he whined.

“It wasn’t _that_ hard,” Maxwell rolled her eyes.

“Yes, it was,” he was rubbing his leg.

“You just want to complain.”

“Also true,” Jacobi assured her.  He took his last gulp of coffee, “Let’s do this thing.”

 

***

 

“Good morning Pontus,” she said entering the chamber.  She hooked up her tablet to the door and scrambled the lock.  It would keep changing the code every minute, keeping anyone but a skilled hacker who could override the program out.  “Will you make sure no one bothers us?” Between Maxwell’s skill and Pontus’s help, the lock should have been virtually unhackable.  

“I will, Dr. Franklin,” said Pontus.  If it was possible for an automated voice to sound surer of itself, it certainly did.  It made Maxwell smile.  A job well done for both of them.  

“Here we go.” she said, sitting down in the chair and attaching the electrodes.  Then she put her fingers to the keys and…

Maxwell was back in again.  It was much easier the second time.  The electro-neuro digital pathways already existed; it was just a matter of traversing them.  There was an imprint of Maxwell left behind.  There always would be.  Until Pontus was decommissioned and deleted, some of his mind would be dedicated to recreating Maxwell’s.  Theoretically, she would always exist in him.  Theoretically, a _new_ duplicate Maxwell could be formed there.  Just a matter of walking along that path and Maxwell’s brain and nervous-system frozen in its March of 2013 form would be recreated.  Theoretically, at least.  No one had ever tried it and Maxwell didn’t know how much of her consciousness could be recreated, how _Maxwell_ that new Maxwell would be.  

She planned on looking over and sorting through the newly freed files along with Pontus, figure out where in his systems they properly belonged.  This way she could find and actually relive the memory of whoever implanted the corrupting virus.  She could know the answer for certain and have the exact indisputable proof she needed.  Then they could both sleep a little easier.

She would find who did this.  They had to have made a mistake.  Humans _always_ make mistakes. Pontus must have the memory of the person who did this – Fuchs, Yıldız, or both – implanting the virus.  Their hubris would be thinking no one could break through the block and eliminate the virus.  But Maxwell could.  And she had.

Maxwell swam through the universe of Pontus’s mind.  He was struggling to properly store the newly exposed files again.  “Having some trouble?”

“A little,” Pontus admitted.  “There is a lot to process.”  

“Let me help.”  Maxwell was already getting to work.  With a few flicks through the air, painting out a few commands, Maxwell stopped the process.  Binary patterns stopped.  Huge sums of money ceased trying to jam themselves into new slots where the corrupted nonsense data had been removed.  Memories froze in thin air, like bright screens surrounding Pontus’s no longer shivering line and Maxwell’s pixilated form.  “I’m going to go through all this information, then I’m going to give them to you to put away, alright?”

“I was trying to do that,” Pontus said. “But there’s so much of it.”

“We’ll go one at a time,” Maxwell said.  “Step by step.  Do you think you can properly store data once I figure out what they are?”

“Of course I can,” he answered, but his new-found confidence wavered.  “I think.”

“You can,” Maxwell assured him.  “Ready?”

“...Yes.”  Then the line quivered as if he took a deep breath.  “Yes.  I’m ready,” he said with more power.  

“You sound so much better than before,” Maxwell smiled.  

“Do I?” asked Pontus.  

“Yes,” she answered.

“Thank you.”

The first piece of information Maxwell came across was a bank account, the _entire_ account of one Mrs. Petra Busch.  She grabbed it and handed it off to Pontus.  “Account.”

“She must not have tried to access it in a week…” muttered Pontus.  “I can’t believe I was missing this entire thing.”

“Well, you aren’t anymore,” said Maxwell.  

The next was a lonely number, a bank account ID: DE NS 3414 8898 99.  This wouldn’t be so easy to replace.  There were dozens of accounts that were now anonymous thanks to this virus.  It wouldn’t be easy to figure out which went with whom.  Pontus would remember, but Maxwell didn’t.  She passed it off to him, plucking it out of the blackness around them.  “I’m not sure where this goes.”

“It’s an account number,” said Pontus.  “I...I will figure out where it’s supposed to go.”

“You just have to remember,” Maxwell assured him.  “Think hard.”

“I’ll remember,” he said, “just...give me a moment…” the line disappeared from next to her, reappeared what seemed like miles away in the galaxy dedicated to the bank’s customers and their accounts.

Maxwell found the phrase, _There are 20 known species of giant isopod living in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans_.  She grabbed it.  “Pontus, do you mind if I put something back?”

“No, go ahead,” Pontus answered distractedly, he was reattaching the account number to the account it belonged to, Burkhard Hahn.  His voice was not any quieter despite their distance.  

Maxwell found the galaxy of oceanic information.  She zoomed into the quadrant: _Invertebrates_ The star system: _Bathyal Zone_ The planet: _Crustaceans._ The continent: _Cymothoida._ The country: _Bathynomus_ The individual: _Giant Isopods._

She returned to the free-floating information.  The first memory she found was the first meeting between Pontus and herself.  That made sense, her floating near the top of his unconscious.  Next she found him talking to Yıldız: “Wer sind Sie? Sie dürfen nicht hier unten sein.”

Pontus returned to Maxwell’s side just as she was scowling trying to teach herself German on the spot.  Without looking over, Maxwell said, “I need this translated into English.”  She put two fingers to the memory and as if she was trying to make something smaller on a touch screen.  She made the memory the size of a large laptop screen then slid it through three-dimensional space to Pontus.  

“Complete,” Pontus said, Maxwell took it, sliding it back.  

“Thanks.” Maxwell took it and enlarged it again, large enough that she could see every detail but not so large that it engulfed them.  It did not surround them but played in front like a TV screen.  Maxwell explored the memory more deeply.  She flicked her fingers through the air and the memory restarted.  She didn’t think it was what she was looking for.  It was one of the older memories that had gotten corrupted, not the memory of the virus being implanted.  She had to watch it anyway, to better help Pontus fit it into the timeline.  

_17:00, 23 November 2012._

_The door hissed open.  Yıldız glanced around.  Smiled.  She crept inside.  All optic sensors in the room trained on her.  If she thought no one saw her she was an idiot.  Clearly she knew as she looked at the optic sensor, as if willing the AI to speak to her._

_“Who are you?” asked Pontus.  “You don’t have clearance to be down here!”_

The voice was the emotional one Maxwell recognized from inside his head rather than the pre-recorded voice that he actually had in the outside world.  The way Pontus heard himself, not the way the world heard him.

_“I know,” Yıldız said with confidence.  “But I wanted to meet you.  I needed to meet you.  My name is Catarina Yıldız, Mr. König’s new assistant.”_

_“Mrs. Schmidt was not allowed down here,” Pontus said._

Maxwell knew that Ursula Schmidt was the previous secretary.  She also knew she retired the day before, her employee ID was no longer listed in Pontus’s database, her computer terminal’s name had been rewritten from User=Ur-R-Schmidt to User=Ca-Z-Yıldız.  Maxwell knew this because Pontus did, Maxwell was also, at the moment, part of Pontus’s brain.  She had access to every part of his central processor; she could know anything and everything with little effort.  

_“I may not have gotten clearance….” muttered Yıldız as if she didn’t really want him to hear her, “but it’s not a big deal!  I just want to talk!   Please don’t raise the alarm!”_

_“...To talk?” Pontus asked._

Maxwell’s sympathy swelled.  She understood his loneliness.  The idea that Yıldız came down to speak with him must have astonished and touched him.  Maxwell doubted anyone – and a little poking around his memory banks confirmed her theory – had ever done that unless they wanted something from him.  Information.  Brief visits to double-check numbers in a way that could not be done from their own desks.  At their desks they could connect to Pontus through the greater system but without getting within the AI’s real eyeshot or earshot.  They could communicate via brief text messages but they never used it for anything beyond basic commands or searches of his databanks.  But that wasn’t actually communicating with anyone.  His systems were in the walls, his senses weren’t.  

And it was torture for him.  He only had one friend in the world and that was Fuchs, and Fuchs was not the sentimental sort that Pontus wanted to be.  

_“What do you want to talk about?”_

_“You, mostly,” Yıldız said._

In the memory Yıldız stood in that same awkward pose Maxwell saw at breakfast, clinging to the tablet she always seemed to carry as if it was the only thing keeping her alive.  

_“Me?  What about me?” Pontus asked in confusion._

_“Well...who built you?” Yıldız began._

_“Goddard Futuristics,” came the simple response._

_Yıldız sighed, “They seem to build everything.  What series are you?”_

_“MX450 Class Adjutant Program, Sensus Series.”_

_“They used the MX450 series on the first_ Hestia _mission, out around Barnard’s Star.  Do you ever wish they sent you to space?” Yıldız asked._

_“No,” he paused for a moment, considering his response, then added, “sometimes I wish they put me in an submerged aquatic laboratory.  There’s one beside the Mariana Trench that Goddard Futuristics runs.  Another in the Caribbean run by an environmental group.  The Australian government has one built alongside the Great Barrier Reef, working to reverse its decay.”_

_“You’d rather be in the ocean than in space?” Yıldız was clearly dissatisfied with the response._

_“I would, why shouldn’t I?”_

_She shrugged.  She ran her fingers along a panel thoughtfully.  “Can you give me a rundown of your specs?”_

_“…Yes.  MX450 Class Adjutant Program, Sensus Series.  Unit 445.  Designation: Pontus.   Containing 1.5 yottabytes T-RAM, 16,000 tebibytes of –” he was suddenly cut off when the door hissed open.   Fritz Meyer stood in the doorway, a look of surprise hardened into one of absolute rage.  “Mr. Meyer?”_

_“Dammit,” Yıldız breathed._

_Meyer stormed towards her.  “What in God’s name are you doing down here?!  How did you get past the retinal scan?!”_

_“I…um…let me explain…” Yıldız floundered.  “You see…”_

_“I don’t know what you could say that would save your job.  You might have the shortest employment in the history of this company,” snapped Meyer._

_“Sir!  I was just…I wanted to know…I’m not…you can check Pontus’s sensory data!  I’m only curious about their specs!”  She tried, desperately, “I’m very interested in supercomput –”  Meyer caught her by the arm._

_Yıldız tried to free herself without much luck, struggling against him but not doing anything besides trying to tug her arm out of his grip. “Please!  I need this job!  Please, please don’t tell Mr. König!”_

Maxwell would have thrown him off, stomped on his foot, pulled her arm out of his grip, thrown him over her shoulder to the ground.  She would have freed herself one way or another.  Yıldız did not.  

Then the optic sensor changed.   They were no longer in the same room but storming into the hallway beyond.  The door hissed closed behind them.  It was stored as separate information, the memory from Optic Sensor 2 rather than Optic Sensors 4-8.  It was stored as a separate file.  

Why was Meyer down there?  Did Yıldız really only want a simple rundown of Pontus’s specs?  Maxwell doubted it.  She pushed through other memories, other data, looking for the continuation of that memory as well as any other evidence of the virus.  

_Hydrothermal vents are commonly found in areas of volcanic activity, points where tectonic plates are moving apart, geological hotspots, and other points water can be geothermally heated._

“Take this,” she said to Pontus distractedly.  She did not need excess information right now.  

She was about to push past a card game between Fuchs and Pontus when Meyer stormed in. November 19, 2012, 1300 hours, 1 PM.  “Da bist du ja! Wir müssen reden, sofort!”  Maxwell froze, grabbed the memory.  When he returned, Maxwell asked Pontus to translate this new clip, and repeated the procedure she did with the first, rewinding only as far back as when Meyer entered.  

_“There you are!   We need to talk, now!” Meyer shouted._

_“What do you want?” asked Fuchs as cooly as ever._

_“I know what you’re doing.”_

_“Playing Klaberjass over my lunch break,” asserted Fuchs._

_“I mean with the merger!  You’re turning König against me!”_

_“You’re doing that yourself,” Fuchs said.  “The merger will not go through.   We don’t need them and we will not give them this.”_

_“König is not fit to run this company!”_

_“But I am,” Fuchs said, turning his attention to the game._

She pulled away €4,000, and passed the money off to Pontus.  A memory of the lonely room from 2012, nothing stirring.  Another almost identical memory from early this year.  Then... _there!_  Camera 2, the second part of the memory with Yıldız and Meyer.   “–Sie sollten sich mehr Sorgen um Herrn Fuchs machen. Er hat ihn in der Tasche.”

“Pontus, translate all.”

“Yes,” Pontus answered.  It took longer than translating memory by memory, but within twenty seconds, he was finished.

_“Mr. König,” scoffed Meyer, “you should be more afraid of Mr. Fuchs.  He has him in his pocket.”_

_Yıldız stopped, clearly stunned.   She stared up at him in disbelief.   “What are you talking about?”_

_“Mr. König is useless.  He’s an idiot.  It’s the Fox and I you should be afraid of.”_

_“Why are you telling me this?” Yıldız asked._

_“Because maybe we can strike a deal, you and I.”_

The memory cut off again.  Sensor 1, not Sensor 2.  Maxwell would have to find where it continued.  She had been getting somewhere.  She cursed under her breath and began probing again.  There was more of her and Jacobi.  There was Fuchs trying to play cards (Rummy in this case) with Pontus, but Pontus’s memories disappearing too quickly to keep up with the game.  His hand was forgotten even as he held it.  

_13 April 2011._

_The first year that Pontus was installed.  Indeed, he was only a week old and his memories and thoughts reflected that.  He was still getting used to reality.  He didn’t struggle to understand it and himself the way a human being did; sentience was not a process.  Self-awareness came in minutes rather than years.  Object permanence was never an issue.  But the world was still a new place.  Pontus spent a lot of time online, not researching the ocean or financial law the way he did now, but instead looking up everything._ Everything. _Any thought that crossed his mind he looked up and found anything he could.  He read constantly._

That was the way most AIs were in their early days, Maxwell found.  As an devout creator and friend of AIs Maxwell knew exactly how old he was to the week from the thoughts linked to the sensory data she was seeing.  

Maxwell didn’t recognize the man in the room with him.  He was a tall human male, with a gray beard and graying blond hair.  There was something of König in his face, build, pale hair and the same wide green eyes. The grayed hair, however, still had flecks of blonde.  If she had to take a guess, she would assume the two were related, maybe she had met the son and was looking at the father: Michael König, the one who had done whatever mysterious favor had won Goddard’s temporary friendship. 

_He was going over Pontus’s system functions, silently scrolling through them in their most simplified form.  “Run diagnostics exam,” he said in a voice louder than necessary._

_“Yes sir.”_

_Meyer entered.  It was the first time Pontus had ever seen him.  The man did not bother greeting the AI.  “Are you really doing this, Michael?”_

_“Are you referring to the succession? Because you know the answer to that,” the other responded without looking up.  “Matthias will take my place next month.”_

_“With all due respect –”_

_“I doubt that, Fritz,” he said without turning away from Pontus’s primary screen as it displayed the diagnostic results.  “But go ahead.”_

_“I’ve known your son since he was a little boy.  He is not cut out for this.  Matthias is –”_

_“Your new employer, so watch what you say about him,” Michael said.  Then he sighed and turned to face Meyer,  “I know he seems immature, but it’s not as if you’re going anywhere.  He’ll have me at home and you here and Pontus will take a huge load off of us all.”_

_“I don’t like this.”_

_“I know you don’t, but I’m tired of this.  Of all of this.  Don’t look at me like that.”_

_Meyer was giving the elder König a look of concern and disbelief.  “I’m sorry.”_

_“No, you aren’t, but at this point I don’t really care.  Pontus, send the diagnostic report to my desk once you’re finished.”_

_“Yes, sir,” the AI replied obediently._

_“Fritz, let’s take this somewhere more private.”_

_“Where’s more private than here?” asked Meyer as they left the room._

He was an idiot if he didn’t realize Pontus would remember every word he said.  That was why he left a trail a mile wide, because he was too stupid to realize that Pontus was a person, a person with eyes and ears, thoughts, and memory.  

Another memory.

_König was staring in disbelief at the screen.  It was 6 March._

The day Maxwell killed a man.

_Meyer, Fuchs, and König all stood around the central console with matching looks of horror and disbelief._

Maxwell knew exactly why.  The virus must have recently been implanted because money was starting to disappear.  

_Pontus was frantically trying to keep things in check.  Luckily no one whose funds had disappeared had tried to access their account.  There were only four now, and all four were being displayed to the three men._

_“I don’t...I don’t know what’s going on, sir!   I don’t know why this is happening! ” said Pontus, desperately.  “I have been trying to keep things as nominal as possible.”_

_“This isn’t possible,” König said in horror.  “Where is it?  Where is it going?”_

_“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Pontus was frantic._

_“We should go to the police immediately,” said Meyer._

_“No,” said König quietly._

_“No?” repeated Meyer._

_“No!” He shouted without turning to face them.  “If customers find out we’ve been hacked they’ll leave.  They’ll take their business elsewhere.  We don’t go to the police.”_

_“This is insane, sir!  We will be ruined anyway if we don’t!  Sooner or later these four people will access their accounts!  They’ll know someone has stolen their money!” said Fuchs.   “I agree with Meyer, we go to the police.”_

_“I said ‘_ no!’” _shouted König, insolent as a child.  “This is_ my _company!  I make the final decisions!  Me, not either of you!”_

_“Mr. König?” Pontus chimed in hesitantly._

_“What?!” he snapped, looking into one of the optic sensors with a venomous expression.  “Are you going to turn on me, too?!”_

_“No!  No!” Pontus said defensively.  “It’s just...Mr. Weber is trying to access his account.”_

_“Dammit,” König slammed his fist against the panel.  There was a desperate pregnant pause in which everyone seemed to be holding his breath._

_“The moment of truth,” said Fuchs behind him.  “What do you do?”_

_“Pontus, you know whenever any account is being accessed, correct?” König asked._

_“Of course, sir,” came the response._

_“Take it from another unaccessed account and move it back when they are finished.”_

_“What?!” demanded Fuchs._

_“That’s –” began Meyer._

_“My decision!” said König.  He watched as money flooded the account in question from a Ms. Nicole Schwarz’s account to Mr. Axel Weber’s.  Then €80 disappeared.  Withdrawn.  The owner none the wiser.  Neither owner.  “It’s only temporary until we can get Goddard Futuristics to fix the leak.”_

_“Then what?” asked Fuchs.  “There’s no solution here.  The money will still be gone.”_

_“Don't worry about unlaid eggs,” muttered König.  His hands were shaking.  “Pontus, keep doing that, whenever there’s a problem.  Keep doing that.”_

_As they left the room, Fuchs hung back.  He looked apologetically at Pontus.  “We’ll figure out what’s going on, Pontus.  Be strong until then.”_

_“Yes...Mr. Fuchs,” said Pontus._

It was _König’s_ idea.  Maxwell shook her head in disbelief.  The actions of someone desperate and clueless but extremely powerful.  One of the many weaknesses of dynastic politics.  But she didn’t have time to think about it.  Because there was the memory with Meyer and Yıldız from the sensor inside the elevator.  Now she could see the deal being struck.  She knew now it must have been Meyer rather than Fuchs, as hopelessly clueless as he was, he had Yıldız on his side.  Meyer, bitter and jealous, was striking back.  Fuchs was too powerful and too close to Pontus.  He’d have no reason to reassure him if he knew Pontus probably wouldn’t remember any of the experience.

_“A deal?” asked Yıldız incredulously._

_“Yes, I… have an idea.  I need someone who can program.  I read your résumé.  I’m sure you can help.”_

_“What do you want me to do?”_

_“Sabotage,” he said flatly._

_“...Seriously?”_

_“Mr. König is not a very good president.  The only reason he holds his position is because of his father.  He deserves to be taught a lesson. Now I have your secret, and you have mine.  König will believe me.  He will not believe you. So we agree to keep them.”_

_“It’s not like I really have a choice.”_

She didn’t.  Pontus’s recordings showed her breaking into his subbasement.  Odds were no one would ever check them, but the evidence existed and could be easily exploited by Meyer with only a little editing.

Maxwell furrowed her brow.  It wasn’t final proof but it was close.  She probed through several newer memories.  She passed them to Pontus to put back in the proper timeline.  Maxwell kept pulling through the information from the tumor.  It felt like hours before she finally found what she needed.

A week ago, earlier on the 6th, before the workday started.  6:30 a.m.  

_Yıldız stood in front of Pontus holding a USB drive in her hand._

_“Ms. Yıldız?” asked Pontus in confusion.  “What’s going on?”_

_She looked up at one of his optic sensors.  “I’m sorry, Pontus.”_

_She inserted the USB and then everything got fuzzy.   Pontus’s vision swirled like a man with a fever.  “What….did...you do…to me?”_

“Gotcha!”  Maxwell cheered.  She could find it again, too.  She put the memory back into sequence. It would be as useful as security footage in a trial.  Yıldız and Meyer would get what they deserved and Pontus would get that relief and justice.  “Pontus, we’ve got—“

Then everything shook.  Quivered.  Then _quaked._  For a moment everything became blurry, as if she was about to pass out.  As if _Pontus_ was about to pass out.  The universe of data scattered for a second.  The equivalent of a seizure.  The yottabytes of information were struggling to reassemble when it began to disappear.  Pontus’s mind was corroding.  Maxwell’s eyes went wide.  It was like watching the digital equivalent of Jacobi’s caustic lime.  But this was melting away Pontus’s living mind.  

“Dr. Franklin…” Pontus’s voice was fluctuating in volume, becoming increasingly staticy and digital, glitching.  “What’ss going-ing on?  What’s ha-ha-happening to-to-to meeee?!”

“Oh God!”  Maxwell knew what this was, she knew from the second the information began to vanish.  This was another virus.  An incredibly deadly one.  There was nothing delicate about it, nothing slow, it was a forest fire, it was caustic lime, it was a flesh-eating bacterium, it was an embolism, it was a tsunami.  It was tearing through Pontus at an amazing rate.  She tried to rewrite the information as it was lost, but she couldn’t keep up.  She was losing him.  “No…” Maxwell whispered, “No, I can fix this!  There’s always a way to fix things!  There’s always a way!”  She pressed the metaphoric defibrillator to his chest but the rhythm was too lost, too erratic. He wouldn’t last.  “Fuck!  Fuck! _Fuck!_ Don’t do this!  Don’t do this!”  

No response.  

She couldn’t let herself pause for even a second.  She kept painting in the air, trying to rewrite the binary of Pontus’s mind before it could be destroyed.  There was still a chance.  There was still a chance…

But things were disappearing too fast.  She couldn’t keep up.  If she stopped to fight the virus everything that made Pontus _Pontus_ would be gone.  All his memories, all his feelings, all of his thoughts, his personality, everything important, if she typed faster than she ever had in her life she might be able to save his most basic functions.  And what would be the point?  What would there be to save without Pontus himself?   

But her sorrow was quickly surmounted by terror.  The virus was deleting everything in Pontus’s mind.  And right now Maxwell was just a electro-neurological phenomenon there.  She had rendered her own mind into binary, she had made herself information that Pontus could process, and now all of that information was being destroyed.  If she wasn’t able to get out…everything _Maxwell_ would vanish along with everything _Pontus._   

She had to make a decision. Either fight this losing battle and be destroyed or escape and leave Pontus for dead.  The wavering line of Pontus was becoming dimmer, flickering, vibrating fiercely in its terror.  

“Don-don-don’t lllleeeeaaaave me-me-meeee…” he begged.

“I won’t...I won’t,” Maxwell managed.  “I promise…”

But Maxwell made her decision.  She couldn’t die here.  She couldn’t die yet.  

Jacobi wasn’t there to help her out of it, but she could do it herself.  It was harder to do it alone, rendered even more difficult because Pontus was shutting down. It was as if she was about to cliff-dive, but the cliff was crumbling under her.  If she made a mistake she wouldn’t be able to transfer the electrical impulses of her mind back from Pontus to her own brain.  Outside her fingers hammered on the keys, inside Maxwell grabbed for code.  She found her opening.  If she entered in drips she had to exit in a cascade.  

Then…

_Free._

Back in her own head her vision swam into focus.  She tore off the electrodes.  She nearly collapsed, but managed to get to her feet.  She was back in reality.  Her mind fully functioning.

Maxwell was not alone in the room. Yıldız stood beside her watching as Pontus’s final screen went dark.  She didn’t notice that Maxwell was coming to.  She turned her head just in time to see Maxwell's fist collide with the side of her face. Maxwell sent her to the ground using the technique Jacobi had taught her and Kepler had taught him.  

“ _Fucking asshole!”_ Maxwell snapped, grabbing Yıldız by the collar with both hands.  She slammed her head against the now dark control panel.  Pontus was gone.  Yıldız was a murderer.  A monster.  The only difference between Maxwell and Yıldız was that Yıldız killed someone Maxwell knew.  “You heartless _asshole!_ ”  She slammed her head again, “You killed him!  You murdered Pontus!”

“I had to!” Yıldız snapped.  “You were going to expose us!”

“You deserve it!” Maxwell replied perhaps even more fiercely,  “Now, where’s Meyer?!”

“Let’s just say if he’s where I think he is, Mr. Teller is in a certain amount of danger,” said Yıldız through her rapidly bruising jaw. 


	14. The Birth of a Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Maxwell makes a choice.

 

 

Jacobi was getting bored.  

He’d texted Fuchs asking him to come meet him at the office.  From how willingly he responded, it was clear he suspected Jacobi and Maxwell might be putting in overtime.  

“Where is Dr. Franklin?” asked Fuchs as soon as he saw it was only Jacobi there.  It was his only greeting.  

“I have no idea, I was going to ask you the same thing,” Jacobi sighed.  

“Isn’t she  _ your  _ job?” 

“She gave me the slip,” Jacobi claimed.  

“You don’t know where she is?” asked Fuchs.

“Nope,” Jacobi answered.

“You’re supposed to be guarding her!” 

“Jeez, you don’t think I know that?!  But you’ve met her!  You think she tells me anything?”  Jacobi said. “I haven’t seen her since last night.  By the time I went down to the desk and got my ID badge, she was gone.  Then she texted me and said to meet her at your office, that’s all I know!”  He showed Fuchs the phony text as proof.  Then they both went upstairs to wait for her. 

Now they were in Fuchs’s office and Jacobi was about ready to scream and pull the pin on a grenade just to shake things up.  Acting as a distraction was  _ the worst _ .  Acting in general was his least favorite part of the job.  He much preferred to be designing weapons, setting them off, or being in the heat of things – a chase, a bomb about to explode that he could disarm, outrunning an explosion or dodging gunfire, Major Kepler laughing madly beside him, field testing his work…. Literally  _ anything _ was better than sitting in the office of a guy who thought it was a good idea to work on Saturday and whose dislike for you was almost a visible aureole around him.  The most excitement Jacobi could hope for was maybe something going wrong and security getting called in.  Then  _ maybe  _ he could use the grenade he had hidden in his belt.  

He got some solace out of the fact that Fuchs seemed to be as bored as he was.  He kept checking his phone and sighing.

“And you say you were in a barfight?” asked Fuchs, eying the bruise at Jacobi’s hairline. 

“It’s been known to happen,” Jacobi answered.

“Most people go through life without one.” 

“Well, it happens to me.” 

“I’m not terribly surprised,” said Fuchs.

“No?” Jacobi asked. 

“We have a word for faces like yours.  Backpfeifengesicht,” said Fuchs slyly.  (Colloquialism meaning “a face in need of a slap.”) 

Jacobi didn’t know what that meant, but he was offended on principle.  With some effort he managed to keep his mouth shut, however, instead just shooting Fuchs an extremely sour look. 

“What was the name of the bar?” Fuchs asked.  

Jacobi had prepared for his.  He fought down a smirk.   _ “You think you’ve caught me, but you haven’t. _ ”  “ReizBar.” (A pun, “bar” is the same in German as it is in English but “reizbar” means “irritable”)

“I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been,” Fuchs admitted. 

“It’s below your price range,” Jacobi assured him. 

“I’m sure.” Another pause in which Jacobi could hear the wall clock ticking loudly.  Although the clock itself was far nicer, the sound reminded him of those gray clocks hanging in every classroom in America, the kind that ticked backward before they ticked forward and drove every kid in the country insane, the kind that made you feel every single second.  

“If we have to wait any longer we should go find her,” Fuchs said.  “I’m sure you and I both know where she is.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jacobi smirked, leaning back. Major Kepler’s office chairs were more comfortable by a long shot, and the little Swiss quartz clock Kepler kept on his desk was as silent as it was ostentatious.  “We’ve been following the rules just like we’re supposed to.  We’re temporary employees, remember?”  Jacobi flashed his ID badge like a gun.

“Yes. I remember,” Fuchs answered irritably rubbing his forehead.  “Sie sind eine echte Nervensäge,” he muttered. (“You are a pain in the neck.”)

“Whatever you just said, I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” Jacobi grumbled.   _“Come on,_ _Maxwell_ ,” he thought.  She’d left hours ago to get this done, creeping into the building as soon as they’d finished breakfast at 6 in the morning to give herself more time.  She’d said this would be easier, she was just sorting, Pontus would be compliant and helpful, and she was looking for something specific.  It couldn’t be _that_ hard or time consuming compared to what she’d been through before.  And this time she’d bypassed the security system entirely rather than relying on the video loop.  The fact that they’d made it to 10:00 without incident (Maxwell would send him an emergency signal if anything went wrong) was reassuring.  This whole stupid Sherlock Holmes thing was almost done.  Maxwell had fixed Pontus.  They could go home soon.  

Maxwell was dangerously close to Pontus.  Even if she didn’t count him as a friend, her pity was too much.  He didn’t know if it would blow up in her face this time, but that was always a possibility.  And if her compassion carried over to the  _ next  _ mission and the one after that and the one after that...there was no way to be an SI-5 agent and care.  She’d lose her damn mind.  But she’d already made it clear what she thought of Jacobi’s opinion and he wasn’t going to push it.  Maxwell could take care of herself.  She could make her own mistakes and learn from them.  Hopefully she didn’t make one so dire it compromised the mission.  What would Cutter do to her if she did?  Jacobi shuttered to think.  

Then he heard the door open.  Fuchs looked up, his eyes went wide.  Jacobi, confident it was Maxwell, did not turn around.

“Game over, jacka—“ 

_ Bang! _

A bullet hole burst on Fuchs’s chest.  Blood gushed out and his shaking fingers groped at the wound as if he could somehow seal it, somehow stop the bleeding.  The life quickly disappeared from his eyes, no longer staring but still wide open.  He slumped in his chair, blood darkening his expensive suit.  

Jacobi went for his gun.

“Don’t try it,” Meyer stood in the doorway, a gun (an H&K USP Tactical, military issue, Jacobi’s mind automatically provided) level with Jacobi’s chest.  There was a fire in those tired eyes Jacobi had never seen before.   “Hands up.” 

Jacobi obeyed with a snarl.  “What the Hell is your problem?”

Get him talking.  

Buy some time. 

Try to give Maxwell enough time to get here and save his ass...

...if she could...

Oh God, he hoped she could.  Would she save him?  Or would his be the death that did it?  Would this be the thing that made or broke her?  Could she really handle becoming a monster?  She had a heart, a bigger one than he ever did, what if the callous just wouldn’t form?

He thought she could do it.  He believed she could.  She was strong enough.  She was tough enough.  She’d shown him that much.  She acted like he did when he first took on this job.  Except...except he thought he always would have taken that shot on the hitman.  Right now real fear that he was wrong coursed through him.  If she couldn’t take  _ that  _ shot, why would she take  _ this  _ one? 

She might not even get there in time.  There was no reason for her to think that Jacobi was in trouble.  He was just supposed to be babysitting some corporate fuck, somebody who depended on a hired gun to get the job done.  Jacobi should have been fine. But, apparently, Meyer was more than he counted on. 

Another thought crossed Jacobi’s mind: if he died here it would be the most embarrassing end he could think of.  Caught off guard by some old man on the easiest mission he’d ever been assigned.  Jacobi did not want to die.  He certainly did not want to die here and now and like this.  To the very end he wasn’t man enough.  “ _ Wouldn’t dad be proud?”  _ he thought, bitterly.

He had to believe she would find him.  He had to believe she would come through.  He had to believe she had his back.

“Why should I explain myself to you?” scoffed Meyer.  

_ “Dammit,”  _ thought Jacobi.  Apparently Meyer had seen the same movies he had.  No monologue, no time to get caught.  

“Goodbye, Teller.” 

Jacobi knew what a bullet felt like.  He had taken the ricochet last year on a mission in the Philippines with Major Kepler.  White-hot pain would burn through him, pulsing out from the source with every beat of his heart.  Not a burning feeling, but an agonizing sting, a throb.  It hadn’t been as bad as he’d been expecting, he’d had worse pain, but it was not something he wanted to repeat.

And this time, the shot would be fatal.  

Jacobi inhaled quickly and went for his gun. He had to try. It was out of his holster, halfway raised as he spun out of his chair. Inches more, micro-seconds more and he would have Meyer in his line of fire. But he wasn’t there  _ yet _ … 

_ Bang! _

...Nothing.  No agony of entry.  No throbbing pain.  No hot sting.  Just the beating of his own anxious heart and the ticking of that damn clock in his ears.  

That must mean… 

Jacobi faced Meyer, and the gun pointed at him.

Blood trickled from the corner of Meyer’s mouth and darkened his starched button-down shirt.  Someone shot him straight through the chest.  Right through the heart.  Someone with perfect aim.

Jacobi let out a sigh of relief.  Fear drained from him.  Meyer’s gun  _ thump _ ed on the carpet.  He had been tipped forward from the force of the shot and, as he died, he fell face-first with a heavy  _ thud.  _ Blood pooled under him, the metallic smell of it hung like a curtain in the air.

Behind Meyer stood a tiny white brunette with her M9 still raised, the smoking gun clenched in near-steady hands.

Maxwell.  

“Alana,” Jacobi grinned.   _ She did it!  _  A second kill and she hadn’t even flinched!  Her expression was determined, her lip set, even if her supporting left hand shook minutely.  But that was okay! It was only her second time and she did better than he could have hoped.  She looked at the corpse with intense anger burning in her eyes like a wildfire, then up at Jacobi, her expression softening.

“Are you alright, Daniel?” she asked, running toward him, dropping her gun.  She stopped short directly in front of him.  For a moment she threw her arms around him.  He did the same in an awkward hug.  Almost as soon as she grabbed him, she let him go.  Jacobi wasn’t often hugged as a child, Dad didn’t want to make him too soft after all.  Wanted Daniel to grow up to be as much of a manly man as he was.  Jacobi didn’t really know how long he should hold someone or what to do with his hands.  Maxwell seemed as clueless.  He didn’t know anything about Maxwell’s childhood besides the fact that she was raised in Montana and a handful of dark hints.  But Jacobi was beginning to think Maxwell’s childhood may have been a bit like his: cold and hard.  

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?” 

She looked from the corpse to Jacobi. “I’m fine.”  She was shaking slightly, but her tearless eyes told him she was being honest.  “Really,” she assured him, “I’m fine.” 

The birth of a monster. 

Jacobi smiled at her, “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” 

“Should we call König?” Maxwell asked.  

“Sure.  Just tell him they offed each other.”  

“Oh, no,” said Maxwell, “I’ve got our guilty party locked in the basement.” 

Jacobi raised his eyebrows, “Yıldız?” 

“Yes.  She…” Maxwell gulped and ran her hand over her eyes as if trying to wipe away any tears before they came, “…she killed Pontus.  She and Meyer were working together.  They killed him to keep from being found out...”  Maxwell’s voice became choked and she trailed off.  She swallowed and looked down.  

“…I’m sorry,” Jacobi said.  “ _ Never get too close,”  _ he thought, “ _ because you never know what’s going to happen.”  _

Maxwell looked up and gave him the grim smile every SI-5 agent acquired, sooner or later.  “Meyer is dead.  And if we frame Yıldız for this, she’ll get what she deserves, too.” 

“Damn straight,” Jacobi said.  He wouldn’t say anything about it now; no “I Told You So” while the wound was still fresh.  

“I’ll get her fingerprints on the gun,” she looked to Jacobi for approval.  

He nodded.  “And yours off it,” he added.  

“Right,” Maxwell agreed.  “I don’t think König’s smart enough to figure out we’re lying.  He’ll go along with our story.”  

“Yeah, he never seemed like the brains of the operation.” 

“I can assure you he isn’t,” Maxwell said.  “Besides, I’ve got dirt on him.” 

“You do?” 

“It was  _ his  _ idea to shift the money around.  I’m going to tell him I saved the evidence, even though it’s gone.  If he goes along with our story, he’s got nothing to lose aside from his secretary,” Maxwell pointed out.  “If he doesn’t...I’m pretty sure what he did counts as theft.” 

Jacobi nudged Meyer’s corpse with his shoe.  “We’re wasting time.  Let’s finish this before someone shows up and finds us here.” 

They hauled the unconscious Yıldız up from the basement, Maxwell had locked her up behind the best program she had, essentially unhackable, especially by someone who’d just been bashed over the head, but there hadn’t been a need, she had yet to awake.  They wrapped her bare hand around Maxwell’s clean gun.  With luck, she would wake up before she was found.  Someone would see her fleeing the building.  Even if no one did, the gun that had killed Meyer had her prints on it.  Yıldız was starting to stir when Jacobi and Maxwell slipped out the back entrance, literally clean if metaphorically filthy.  

As they quickly but calmly left the crime scene, Maxwell called König.  Her voice was more serious than it had been in their previous meetings, it was more business-like, steadier, someone who would not argue but proclaim.  Jacobi was again privately impressed by it and at how she handled herself.  He thought she might have been powered by the anger of seeing Pontus die and, he hoped, his own life being in danger. 

“Mr. König?  I’m sorry to wake you, but Teller and I have had quite the morning.  Pontus, Meyer, and Fuchs, too.  Yes.  No, they’re not okay. They’re dead.”  

A long pause in which Maxwell looked at Jacobi, her expression one of calm determination.  

She continued, “I can tell you how if you’re quiet for a few seconds!  I was trying to help Pontus when Yıldız —” a pause, “Yes, your secretary. Yes, she must have bypassed your security system.  That’s what happens when you hire a computer expert to do menial tasks – we get bored.”  She resumed, “Yıldız erased Pontus.  She  _ killed  _ him.”  Maxwell swallowed and her voice became a little tighter on those words.  But she controlled herself, getting back the strength in her voice.   “He’s gone.  Well...almost…” another pause, “No, he can’t do anything  _ for _ you, but I saved a certain memory file I found…” and another pause.  

“Let’s just say you wouldn’t look good in the court of law,” she said. 

A longer pause this time.  

“What do I know?   _ Everything _ .  I know what you had Pontus do with—” and again, “That’s right Mr. König.  Don’t worry, I won’t release it... _ if _ —” she sighed in exasperation, “Yes, I said ‘if!’   _ If  _ you listen to me.  I’ll tell you everything you need to know!”  

She filled him in on their story.  Meyer and Yıldız were working together to sabotage the bank.  No money was actually stolen, only temporarily moved, but Pontus could not find it because of the virus.  Luckily, Pontus had all but finished putting it back where it belonged before he shut down.  Accounts would be briefly inaccessible, but that could be explained away with some apologies. After all, it was all the fault of a single party, an employee, the bank itself was sound. Meyer shot Fuchs, probably out of jealousy.  Yıldız killed Meyer, who knew why.  And when there was some protest, Maxwell very coolly convinced him to go along with another mention of the memory file she did not actually have.  It would be a shame to lose Yıldız, but it would be even more of a shame if what König did got out, wouldn’t it?  

And the problem was settled.  Yıldız would take the fall.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last night my proofreader gave me the rest of this fic, so there will be a rapid succession of updates over the next few days.


	15. Exceptional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yıldız is offered a job.

 

 

Catarina Yıldız sat in the holding cell of the Brelingstedt police station.  It had been several hours since she was found.  The custodian saw her fleeing the building with the murder weapon she attempted to hide.  She didn’t leave it at the crime scene – she dumped it into the water – but fate caught her anyway.  The police were at her apartment within the hour.  It had been...she checked her watch...three hours since then.  

She wished she hadn’t pushed her parents away.  She wished she’d spent more time trying to make friends.  She wished there was _someone_ to help her now.  There wasn’t.  Not a soul in the world.  No one.  

Catarina never thought her parents understood her.  They came from two different worlds.  Catarina was German; her parents were so clearly Turkish.  Her mother clung to the traditions that had all but crippled her independence, made her reliant on her husband.  Catarina would not be that way, regardless of what her parents wanted.  She would not be like them.  They spent so much money just to move here.  They named her Catarina, a German name.  But they remained Turkish.  

Catarina did not. She spoke both German and Turkish, but her parents’ language, out of disuse, had gotten rusty.  She’d never been close to her parents.  They belonged to a different world.  A different country.  A very different reality.  They belonged to a developing nation; she was a child of the first world.  At least, that was how _she_ always saw it.  Her parents disapproved of a lot of the things she did.  Her mother was obsessed with things being proper, but her idea of proper and Catarina’s were wildly divergent and irreconcilable.  They went up against each other like two sides of a fault line with equally catastrophic results.  

It had been hard to convince her mother to let her go to college, she didn’t see the point.  But her father had been delighted by the idea.  She always did well in school.  She always loved it.  She remembered when she found her life’s goal.  She was 12 and her class went to the planetarium in Hamburg.  Space became her obsession.  Then, the computers that brought humanity into space.  

Her father was less delighted by graduate school.  And even less so when she declared she was going after her PhD.  She didn’t need it.  She needed to find a job, not get more degrees.  They wouldn’t pay for it.  So it was up to Catarina.  The program itself wasn’t terribly expensive, but living on her own was.  Now she worked hard as well as attending classes and it wore her down.  Any social life she might have had died.  

She hadn’t spoken to her parents in months.  She’d never been good at keeping in touch with people.  Never good at making and keeping friends.  Too introverted for that.  It had never bothered her before; she had a handful of acquaintances from school, and neighbors, mostly, and she felt like that was enough.  But now, she as so utterly alone.  It wasn’t as if anyone could actually help her, anyway.  She had no way out of this.

She knew who killed Meyer, but no one would believe her.  There had been only four people who knew that the Goddard Futuristics employees were there.  Now two people.  And the employees themselves were gone.  They set her up and disappeared.  The police were informed that Mr. Teller and Miss Franklin had checked out of their hotel.  They were nowhere to be found when the police went to question these invisible agents.  König, the bastard, believed _their_ story, what was now the official story: that Catarina was guilty.  König may have made some deal with Teller and Franklin to save his own ass.  Everything was dropped on her.  

Corporate sabotage.  Theft.  Murder.

She would be found guilty.  König would make sure she fell.  König would make sure she lost what little she had. Forget getting her PhD, König would make sure she went to prison.  Just out of spite.  Just because he was a hateful and proud little man.  Because she was smarter than he was and smarter than he thought.  He was not as smart as he should have been. And with Meyer dead, it would all be on her.

Oh, the headlines.  She could see them now.  Nordsee Bank executives shot dead in their offices.  An AI obliterated along with everything he contained. A man and machine killed by an assistant.  An assistant who blamed two people who did not seem to exist.  She leaned back against the cold wall of the cell staring at the ceiling without really seeing it.

She did feel guilty about Pontus.  They weren’t friends, not really.  they didn’t know each other well enough for that.  Pontus always struck her as strangely needy, lonely.  His instant messages were a little too long, too leading.  But he wasn’t mean, or in any way deserving of what she did to him.  

She tried to rationalize it.  She _had_ to do it.  Otherwise she’d end up...well she’d end up like she had.  It wasn’t murder, she tried to say, but she knew it was.  She knew Pontus was sentient, was alive, was a person, and as much as she wanted to pretend he wasn’t, she couldn’t properly convince herself she had only unplugged a machine.  

“Well, well, well, Catarina, you’re in quite the pickle…” said a voice, pulling her from her thoughts.  She hadn’t even heard the owner approach.  The voice was high and friendly, but _too_ friendly, friendly in a way that put her on further on edge.  She could hear the smile in it, and who could smile in a place like this?  It was not the voice of one of the police officers she’d met, and even if he was supposedly a new officer, why would he speak to her in English?  If he was a public defender, the linguistic question still stood.  She looked over at the man silhouetted on the other side of the bars.  

He was not an unusually small man, nor an exceptionally tall one.  He wasn’t thin, nor heavy.  His skin was unblemished and light brown.  His hair was black and neat.  His expensive-looking suit was tailored to perfection.  He was smiling kindly, sympathetically, but there was a glint in his brown eyes she didn’t like.  

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You do get to the point, don’t you?” he asked.  “Let’s just say...I’m a friend.”  Then, more quietly, he added, “…the only one you seem to have.”  

She was about to say she didn’t need a friend, but that was a lie.  Of course she needed “a friend.”  She needed someone who could get her out of this...not that “a friend” could do that.  Not without the ability to pull some very hefty strings, the sort that would support suspension bridges.  “What do you want?” she asked instead.  

“Just to talk, Catarina, just to talk,” he held up his hands in mock surrender.  As he lowered them, she thought she saw his eyes flash dangerously.  “But...maybe something will come of it.”  

“Doubtful,” Catarina responded sharply.  “Maybe you haven’t heard I’m being charged with _murder_.”

“Among other things,” he said brightly. “But you’d be surprised what sort of things a powerful friend can just make…disappear.”

Catarina raised her eyebrows.  “You’re saying you can make a murder charge ‘disappear?’”

“I can do _much_ more than that,” he assured her.

Catarina laughed.  She couldn’t believe this was a conversation she was actually having.  Was all of today just a strange, twisted dream?  It was insane.  And this man was insane.  But, honestly, what did she have to lose in talking to him?  Nothing.  She had nothing left.  

“You don’t believe me,” the man sighed. “That’s okay.  You will.  You absolutely will.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Catarina said.

“I represent a very powerful company,” he said.  “One of the largest, most important, and most powerful in the world, in fact.  We’re always looking for exceptional individuals to take on.  The best and brightest.”  

“Then why are you talking to me?” asked Catarina.  She knew she was a good hacker, she knew more about engineering than most people, certainly more than laymen, but she wasn’t _that_ good.  There were people better.  People like Anna Franklin.  

“Don’t be so humble,” said the man.  “You’re very good.  What you did to Pontus?”  Her heart stung again.  “That was _incredible_.  It took one of ours to stop you.”

Catarina’s eyes went wide.  “You’re from Goddard Futuristics…” she breathed.  

Had she been set up?  Was Meyer’s and her fall inevitable?  Had they engineered it all from the outside?  Had Goddard Futuristics been watching them?  Was this all some enormous conspiracy?  Could it be?  

But _why?_ Why all of this? Why would it be this way?  

“Of course,” said the man.  He presented her with a business card.  She stood and took it from him.  It was extremely simple, a logo, a single word, and a web address embossed in black ink on very expensive paper:

_Goddard Futuristics_

_Cutter_

_cutter@goddardfuturistics.com_

She stared at the card for a long time.  She turned it over.  She didn’t know what she was expecting to find, but it wasn’t there.  Just an ordinary business card.  “Franklin _did_ stop me,” Catarina pointed out, glancing up from the card to the smiling man in the tailored suit.  

“I didn’t say you were _the_ best, just among them,” laughed the man, Cutter.  Then he spoke more seriously, “But the woman who stopped you?  She _is_.”

“The best?” Catarina asked.

“Exactly,” Cutter answered.  “So wear that with pride.  Do you know what else I found exceptional?”

“No, what?” She couldn’t help but actually find herself curious about all this, drawn in by the insanity of this conspiracy.  This was really happening to her.  

“Your dissertation on using stars to amplify the signals of pulse beacon relays...” said Cutter.  “Using the star’s excess radioactivity to prevent the signal from cooling to a point that it matches the temperature of the vacuum.  Your idea would allow the relay to travel anywhere in the conceivable universe.  It’s not possible with our current technology, you’d throw the signal off course, but the idea is brilliant.”

Her eyes widened again.   _Her dissertation._   “Why did you read that?”

“Because I’m always looking for fresh blood,” he said in a way that might imply the blood was literal.  

“I think you might be insane.”

“Maybe.  You wouldn’t be the first person to accuse me of that, at least,” he shrugged.  “Buuuut, I’m not the one locked in a cell after slaving away in a low-paying nightmare of a job I hated, trying desperately to get those three little letters attached to the end of my name.  And I’m not going on trial for terrorism.”

“Terrorism?!” she repeated.  Her heart catching in her chest.  What was he talking about?!  What could he possibly mean?  And was he _right_ ?  He knew so much.  She didn’t actually think he was crazy.  The _situation_ was crazy, but he might be horribly sane, comparatively.  

“Yes,” he said, examining his cuticles with extreme disinterest.  “After what happens tonight they’ll be _substantially_ upping the charges.”

“What _is_ going to happen tonight?” asked Yıldız in confusion.

“Oh,” chuckled Cutter, “I would _hate_ to spoil the surprise.  Let’s just say I know my employees _very_ well and I know for a fact that one of them isn’t done yet.”

“You’re bluffing!  You’re just trying to get me to do something!  You want something from me...” she tried desperately.

“I told you before, you don’t have to believe me, it really doesn’t matter.  Here’s what does.  Terrorism or murder, you _are_ going to go to prison, unless we reach some kind of satisfactory exchange.”   

And here it came.  “Just tell me what you want,” she said again, this time in a whisper.

“I want to hire you.”

She laughed.  “Nowhere on Earth, especially not a company like Goddard Futuristics, can hire a fugitive,” Catarina pointed out.  

A slow, wide smile.  “You may be right, but what I have planned goes far beyond Earth.  There’s a binary star called Luhman 16.  It is being orbited by our deep space dispatch, a station called _Hermes_ …”

“You want _me_ to go to space?  You want _me_ working on the _Hermes?”_ This was the best thing _anyone_ could ask of her.  There was _nothing_ she wanted more.  But how could this be _real_?  Any of this?  She would have thought it was a dream if she wasn’t so painfully awake.  

“So, you’ve heard of the station.  I’m glad.  Well, truth is, they need a communications officer. An astrophysicist with an interest in pulse beacon relays would be an excellent choice. And, as an added bonus, I can make this whole situation just...go...away,” Cutter told her with a dramatic flutter of his hand as if he was releasing her alleged crimes into the air.  

“You’re joking!” said Catarina, despite herself.

“I’m not,” he assured her.  “And when you come back to Earth, you can have a nice position in our intelligence division. No more prison. No more playing secretary to ungrateful and undeserving dirtbags who make you want to poison their coffee. What do you think?”

“I can’t believe this is real…” she muttered.  

“That’s not an answer.”

“If this is real, then I accept,” Yıldız said.  If this was real, it was everything she ever wanted.   If this was real, her life would become a dream come true.  This went from the worst day of her life to the best.  

“Excellent.”  Cutter pulled a key from his pocket and opened the cell door.  She stared in amazement.   “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I can just leave?”

“You can just leave.”  

She stood and crossed the barred threshold.  No one stopped her.  Nothing happened.  He offered her his brown hand. She gripped it and shook. It was very warm, unlike his smile, but dry.  His grip was painful.  She half-expected to see some brand burned in her skin when she drew back.

“Let’s leave this ugly little place and move somewhere more comfortable. There’s a lot of paperwork to sign,” he said.  

She followed him from the holding cell, although something deep inside her, something she very readily ignored, warned her she shouldn’t.


	16. Gemütlichkeit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jacobi and Maxwell share a drink

Maxwell and Jacobi were only one town away from Brelingstedt.  They were a little further down the curve of the bay in Cuxhaven.  It meant that from the beach they could still see Brelingstedt’s skyline and the darkened Nordsee Bank building stabbing upward.  

Maxwell had picked the lock on a yellow Strandkorb and was presently sitting in it.  The chair was angled to face both sea and city.  Maxwell was turned slightly so she could watch the calm water.  There was a lot running through her head, weighing heavily and confused.  She had killed again.  But she had saved Jacobi.  That made it hurt less.  It still hurt, but it wasn’t like it had been when she killed the intruder.  She couldn’t let anything happen to him.  He was her friend.  She had already failed Pontus.

Pontus.  

Maxwell knew now the real reason she couldn’t get too close.  Because at any moment, anyone could die.  Even the most simple mission could be more than it seemed.   She didn’t hear Jacobi approach over her own thoughts.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up in surprise.  “Hey,” she echoed.

“This seat taken?” he asked.

“Nope,” Maxwell said, patting the seat beside her.  

He sat down.  “So…what’re you thinking about?”

She sighed. “How I screwed up my first mission.”

“You didn’t,” Jacobi said.

“Pontus is dead!” Maxwell reminded him.

“Yeah, but König is grateful we found and eliminated the cause.  We got paid, and better than we would have for repairing Pontus.  Mr. Cutter seems real happy with the outcome.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Maxwell asked.

Jacobi scratched his chin thoughtfully, the stubble (there after a several days of little time to shave) adding a faint scraping sound.  “Honestly?  I bet he knew something.  He’s like that. If there’s one thing you learn, it’s that Cutter knows  _ everything _ .”

“You think he knew all along this was going to happen?” she asked.  

“You don’t?” Jacobi asked.

A pause.  Maxwell considered this.  He might have known someone on the inside had done this.  Maybe he had read something into Pontus’s symptoms that Maxwell had not.  It was true that Cutter seemed to know everything.  She thought about that man she’d killed in the GF corridor: within ten hours, Cutter knew who he was and who was working with him.  Maybe he knew this time, too.  

“You might be right,” Maxwell conceded.  She wondered how much Cutter knew and how much he predicted.  The way Jacobi talked about him, it was as if Cutter could have predicted  _ everything _ .  Maybe he could have saved Pontus from dying.  “I just wish…” she trailed off.  “Pontus deserved so much  _ better _ than that!” she said angrily, saying what had been boiling in her for so long. She wished she could have saved Pontus.  He wasn’t a bad person, Maxwell was far worse.  He didn’t  _ deserve _ to be erased.

“Alana…” Jacobi spoke sympathetically, but he shook his head.  “You have to forget about who deserves what.  It never works that way.   _ Never.   _ People don’t get what they deserve.  If they did, I’d be  _ long _ gone.” He gave her a smile after that.  She let out a breath and stared at the water.  That much was true.  If everyone got what they deserved, her father would not be respected and loved by his congregation.  Her mother would not be held as this beacon of goodness.  And she and Jacobi would probably both be dead for what they had done – and continue to do.  And Pontus...Pontus  _ wouldn’t  _ be dead.  

If you wanted something, you had to take it.  Hadn’t Maxwell learned that by now?  It wasn’t just technology, knowledge, and the future she had to grab for – it was everything.  You had to make your own ends.

“You’re right,” she said without looking at him.  “Nobody gets what they deserve, do they?”  She thought about Pontus again.  

“I’m sorry about Pontus,” Jacobi said, clearly sharing the same train of thought.

“Me, too,” Maxwell answered, still looking out at the water, the sea Pontus so loved.

“And I’m sorry about...what you had to do,” Jacobi added.

Maxwell knew what he meant. That she had to kill another person. This time she turned to look up into Jacobi's face and spoke honestly, “I’m not.”  

Jacobi raised his thick eyebrows. “No?”

“God, no.  I would take that shot a million times. You were going to die, Daniel!” Maxwell told him.  “I couldn’t let you die.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Jacobi conceded.  

“What are partners for?” she asked.  Then she revised it, “What are friends for?”

Jacobi grinned.  “We pair up pretty good.”

“I think so, too,” Maxwell answered, feeling herself smiling back.  “We have each other’s backs.”

“We’ve got each other’s backs,” Jacobi agreed.  

“So what happens now?” Maxwell asked.

“Now?” he repeated.  “We celebrate.”

He passed her a beer from his bag.  It wasn’t cold, but the night was.  He uncapped it with a keychain opener.  It was called Störtebeker.  It had a ship on the label, sailing across a blue ocean toward the drinker.  The words  _ Pilsener-Bier  _ were printed in slightly angled white-on-blue text at the bottom.  “We drink to a job well done.  And…” He pulled a yellow electronic detonator from his bag.  He flipped it on, pressed a few buttons, then jammed on the largest one, “we watch the fireworks.”

Distantly, the Nordsee Bank building exploded in a cacophony of light and sound.  Bright white and yellow, a ball of flame and a plume of smoke painted against the dark sky. People on the sidewalk beside the beach screamed and pointed, others leaned out their windows or came down onto the street.  Jacobi smiled.  Maxwell was stunned at first.  She looked over at Jacobi and saw the joy on his face.  Then she smiled, too.   When she looked back at the burning building, actual fireworks burst out of it, white, blue, red, and purple blossoming across the sky.  She began to laugh.  

“Did you put real fireworks in there…?” Maxwell asked, through her laughter.   Now she was grinning not because Jacobi was, but because it  _ did _ feel like a celebration.  

“Yeah.  It’s a special occasion," Jacobi assured her. He brought the necks of their bottles together, the gentle  _ clink  _ of glass barely audible over the commotion.  “Prost!” (“Cheers!”)

“Prost,” Maxwell answered.  She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this happy.  Maxwell grinned as she took a sip.  Her heart felt light and full. Distant fire engines howled.  People were shouting.  A baby cried as its mother yelled something into a cell phone. Maxwell knew she shouldn't feel this way, but for once in her life, everything felt right.  That feeling of “home” was back, even more intense.  

There was a German word she remembered, Gemütlichkeit.  It meant the peace of mind and warmth you felt when you were at ease, when you were content, when you were accepted.  Something beyond comfort and coziness. She had seen it in an advertisement she translated on a whim.  At the time she had only vaguely processed it.  She didn’t really  _ understand  _ it.  

But she did now.  

It was that feeling in the car the day they arrived here.  The feeling on their way back into Brelingstedt when she explained the  _ Harry Potter  _ houses to Jacobi.  It was the feeling right now.  And right now was probably one of the best moments in her life.  

Here with Daniel Jacobi on this abandoned German beach, watching a building go up in smoke a mile away, she knew.

Gemütlichkeit.  


	17. Störtebeker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: USS Urania and Hephaestus, orbiting Wolf 359
> 
>  
> 
> In which Jacobi and Maxwell remember

In ten days they would make contact.

In ten days everything Jacobi knew would change.

He and Maxwell had discussed it, but there was too much to properly discuss.  Too much to comprehend.  Here they stood at the end of the universe with the end of everything they knew barreling toward them.  What could they say?  What could really encompass it all?  It was almost too much to comprehend, let alone put into words.

The threat, no, the  _ promise  _ of contact was weighing heavily on Kepler, too. Never a peaceful man, Kepler's acts of physical discipline and violence had skyrocketed.  Jacobi had the bruises and electrical burns to prove it, all expertly hidden by his uniform so no one on the  _ Hephaestus  _ would suspect the truth of Kepler’s breakdown.  Not even Maxwell knew the extent of it.  He was afraid to tell her, afraid of what she might do if she knew.  She knew things had changed for Kepler, but she didn’t know how drastically.  

Jacobi, Maxwell, Kepler himself, and the idiots on the _ Hephaestus  _ had not had a single rotation off in three days.  For Maxwell’s 28th birthday, they had celebrated during their shift.  They had been working on the pod in which they would spend the next four days together with the lunatic Lovelace and the idiot Eiffel.  For Maxwell’s birthday, Jacobi stole extra rations of coffee and chocolate.  He framed Eiffel for the theft.  Kepler bought it.  Eiffel took the brunt of the Colonel’s anger, and Maxwell and Jacobi got to reap the rewards.

That was two days ago.  It had been three days since Jacobi slept.  Jacobi was no stranger to all-nighters, but this was starting to take its toll.  Presently, it was the first time in 72 hours that Jacobi was on call but not actively working on the thruster systems for the pod or keeping up with the constant maintenance the  _ Hephaestus _ required.  The first time he wasn’t checking, double-checking, or quintuple-checking his work.  

He should have been reading over the charts Minkowski had given him, tracking the solar storm they’d be weathering for 96 hours.  It was his job as administrative officer and the highest-ranking member of the recon mission, but he found himself falling asleep.  He was drifting off and physically starting to drift away from the panel where he’d used magnets to pin down the maps.  He was starting to snore when the doors whirred open behind him.

Then something collided with the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, Colonel!”  he shouted quickly.

“Mr. Jacobi, rise and shine!  I have a job for your sorry ass!” said Maxwell in her best imitation of Kepler’s drawl.  The dialogue was fine, not perfect, but good enough.  Maxwell had been working with Kepler long enough now to get that syntax, but the accent was still lacking.

Jacobi felt a welling of relief that it wasn’t  _ actually  _ Colonel Kepler.  He laughed.  “Yes sir, Colonel, sir,” he saluted Maxwell.  “What seems to be the problem?”  

The thing that hit him was Maxwell's rust-red toolbox. She must have thrown it very gently since it surprised him rather than actually hurting him.  It was drifting extremely slowly back to where she was hovering in the doorway to the  _ Urania’s  _ comms room.  She caught the box with both hands.

“Remember Stabby?” she asked.

“Eiffel’s Roomba?” Jacobi clarified. 

“They aren’t  _ Eiffel’s,”  _ Maxwell said in annoyance, she crossed her arms, leaving her toolbox to hover beside her.  “They are a definitely alive – and possibly even sentient – magnetic Roomba stored on the  _ Hephaestus  _ that Eiffel decided to tape a knife to and unleash on the station before utterly losing track of them.”  

“Right, a knife to get out ‘tough stains,’” Jacobi said, providing air-quotes.  Then he scoffed, “I don’t think that man has ever owned a vacuum in his life.” 

Maxwell raised her eyebrows, “And what happened to  _ your _ vacuum, Jacobi?"

“I turned it into a missile launcher,” Jacobi mumbled.  

“Right,” Maxwell said with a satisfied smile, “so the comment about Eiff—“ 

“That isn’t the point!” Jacobi assured her.  “I remember Stabby.  My ankles remember Stabby, too.”  He rubbed the fresh scars on his left ankle where Eiffel’s creation had attacked him during an escape. “Did you find them?” 

“Well…” Maxwell said, “I didn’t find Stabby…I found  _ evidence  _ of Stabby.”  

Jacobi ran a hand through his hair in frustration, “What’d they break?” 

“Let’s just say no one is going to be using the airlocks on the aft deck or turning off the greenhouse’s sprinkler system until we get down to engineering.”  

“Can we just kill Eiffel?” Jacobi groaned.

“Not yet,” Maxwell answered with a grim smile. 

They went down to the  _ Hephaestus _ ’s engineering bay, ignoring the exhausted faces of the crew they passed.  Lovelace shot them a look of equal parts loathing and determination, probably thinking about all the napalm she didn’t realize they knew  _ all  _ about.  Jacobi gave Maxwell a knowing expression and they both suppressed a laugh.  Lovelace clearly had no idea who she was dealing with.  Eiffel was in the comms room, pushing himself in slow 0g cartwheels and going over the protocol for the comms blackout tomorrow with Hera.  Or Hera was trying to go over the protocol for the comms blackout while Eiffel made movie references. __ “I get it, I get it, if we have a problem Houston will have no idea.” 

“...Sure, just like that, Officer Eiffel,” Hera said in confusion. 

Jacobi and Maxwell took the elevator down to the engineering bay.  When the doors whirred open, they pushed themselves off the handholds into the chamber beyond.  

“You guys are here to fix what Stabby did, right?” Hera asked. 

“Yep,” Maxwell answered.  “Have they been back?” 

“Not that I know of,” Hera said.  “Nothing else has been cut.” 

“You have eyes  _ everywhere  _ on this damn station, why can’t you find the stupid thing?”  Jacobi asked, annoyed at how long the Roomba hunt had been going on.  

“Why didn’t I think of that?!” asked Hera sarcastically.  “Oh wait!  Maybe they’ve been inside the walls and they’re a moving bit of magnets, metal, and plastic that isn’t any different from the  _ millions of other bits _ of magnets, metal, and plastic that are  _ always moving  _ to keep the station from crashing into the star or suffocating you guys!”  

“And whenever they pop out, what, you’re twiddling your thumbs?” 

“I don’t  _ have  _ thumbs!  That’s the problem!  I need  _ hands  _ to grab Stabby!  Or  _ some _ one with hands!” 

“What about a Roomba Alert, huh?  After everything you’ve pulled, the _least_ you could do is _try_ to be helpful for _once_ —”  

“That’s enough, both of you,” Maxwell snapped in exasperation.  “Jacobi, shut up.  Hera, don’t bait him.” 

“Why do you always take her side!” Jacobi crossed his arms, realizing he might have been whining more than he meant to be.  

“I don’t!” Maxwell responded, “You’re just being an asshole!  I brought you down here to be my nurse, not to pick fights.” 

“I can do both,” Jacobi grumbled, taking the toolbox as it was thrust into his arms.  

Maxwell gave him a warning look that actually made him close his mouth for once.  He did make a popping noise, like something being unplugged, a reminder  _ Hera  _ would remember him doing before and  _ Maxwell  _ wouldn’t.  

Except that she seemed to.  Maxwell gave Jacobi a hard glare.  

“Careful, Mr. Jacobi, don’t pick fights with the person who controls your air supply,” Hera muttered darkly.  

“Ooh, I’m shaking.  Or I would be if you could do it,” Jacobi answered smugly. 

Maxwell gave her optic sensor a warning look, “ _ Both of you – stop it! _ ” 

They did.  Jacobi knew they were both doing it  _ for Maxwell.    _

Hera didn’t like him.  He didn’t like Hera. He thought part of it was that Hera was sarcastic and short-fused and Jacobi had no tolerance for someone that much like himself.  But he knew in the tiny part of his brain that was actually mature that he was  _ jealous  _ of the relationship Maxwell and Hera shared.

Jacobi wondered if Maxwell ever felt that way about Kepler’s relationship with him or if she was too-well put together and too much of an adult for that.  Despite the spike in violence, Jacobi still knew his commanding officer liked him.  It was just stress.  Kepler was under a lot of it.  He was trapped with very few ways to get out his anger and aggression.  He didn’t even have his scotch to calm him down anymore.  So he turned it on Jacobi who still trusted Kepler, he thought he always would, but was beginning to worry about Kepler’s sanity.  

Once, Maxwell and he tried to talk about it.  It was on one of the rare occasions Kepler had laid a hand – or rather an anti-alien weapon – on Maxwell.  Jacobi was helping to patch her up.  It was a terrifying moment, but Jacobi still believed Kepler would get them through this and get them home.  He was the only way home.  He would get them home and then everything would go back to normal.  Earth had scotch and enemies for Kepler to take out his anger on.  Kepler was still the greatest leader Jacobi could think of.  The biggest and best bully on the playground.  A shining example of a man, even if the stress of contact had tarnished him a little bit.  But that, ultimately, didn’t matter.  Kepler would get the three of them home safely.  Jacobi believed that.  He had to believe that.  The alternative was too terrifying to even consider.

Maxwell used one of the handholds to yank herself toward a panel on the far wall.  She pulled at the panel and it fell open like a saloon door, neatly cleaved by Stabby’s blade.  Opening it revealed a long trail of just-as-cleanly-split wires going up the wall.  Maxwell sighed.  At the ceiling the panel had been sliced off completely, the sheet metal floating like a stiff seabird on a breeze.

“This sucks,” Jacobi said flatly.

“No kidding,” scoffed Maxwell.  “So let’s get started.  Give me the pliers.”  

“Sure,” Jacobi reached into the toolbox and groped around for the pliers.  He put them in her open hand.  She freed the severed wires and Jacobi picked them out of the air when she pushed them in his direction.

Pliers.  Wire.  Soldering gun.  Special space-safe welding torch (invented by Jacobi and Maxwell themselves) to close up the panel.  They kept going, working through the damage, piece by piece.  And once she fixed the wires (they controlled the sprinklers, she informed Jacobi) and welded the panel closed, she pushed herself ceiling-ward to deal with the airlocks.  

“Screwdriver,” Maxwell said, reaching down for it.  She was up by the ceiling now, one foot was hooked into a handhold on the wall to keep her from floating too far while both hands worked on the open panel.  She needed to prise out the gouged chips, something she had tried – and failed – to do with her fingers.

“Screwdriver,” Jacobi repeated like a nurse in a hospital procedural.  In taking it from the box he accidently freed a piece of battered paper that had been taped with long-dried masking tape to the inside of the lid of the toolbox.  Jacobi grabbed it before it floated away. 

He realized it was a beer label, printed in German.  

Störtebeker.  

It had a ship on the label, sailing across a blue ocean toward the drinker.  The words  _ Pilsener-Bier  _ were printed in slightly angled white-on-blue text at the bottom. Immediately he remembered that mission almost exactly three years ago.  

He remembered realizing Maxwell counted cards when she played Uno.  

He remembered Maxwell’s angst over her first killing.  Now all she felt was recoil, just like he did, just like everyone in SI-5 did.  Even  _ he _ had become colder since then.  He remembered thinking three years ago that he was as icy, as bad, as much of a monster as he could ever be.  It was hilarious thinking back on that now.  He’d still been so sensitive.  He’d still cared.   _ That  _ was long gone.  Guilt was long dead.  (Wasn’t it?) 

He remembered meeting Pontus.

He remembered the fear he felt watching Maxwell inside of Pontus’s mind, the same fear he felt when she was in Eunomia’s, the same fear he felt a month ago when she was in Hera’s.  He knew she would come out of it again, she always did.  She was too good to trap herself, but that didn’t mean he could squelch the anxiety that  _ this _ time she might not.  

He remembered the pain from the hitman’s knife in his long amputated and replaced right arm.  Another mission a year and a half after they met cost him that arm, but Maxwell had built him the replacement.  He still had the scar on his side from the hitman’s blade, even if he’d lost his arm between then and now.  

He remembered Maxwell muttering about the meaty smell of the burned human flesh.  

He remembered his own pride at using non-flammable caustic lime to start a fire.  

He remembered Maxwell standing over Meyer's corpse, a smoking gun in her hand, the first of so many times she saved his life. 

He remembered their awkward first hug. 

He remembered Maxwell threatening König into going along with their scheme and knowing just how badass she was.  

He remembered that night on the beach, the sun low over the water, the gentle surf lapping at the sand, sitting beside Maxwell in Cuxhaven as the fireworks burst in nearby downtown Brelingstedt.  The clink of glass.  He could still taste the pilsner.  She called him her friend.  Had that been the first time they’d said it aloud?  He couldn’t remember now.  

What he did remember was the overwhelming warmth he’d felt.  Not joy, per se, but…contentment.  Not elation, but comfort.  It was the moment he realized she was his best friend, maybe the best friend he could ever ask for.  

And it proved true.  

“Jacobi?  Jacobi are you listening to me?” Maxwell asked.  

“Is this label from the Brelingstedt Mission?” he asked.

Maxwell smiled fondly.  “Yeah, it is.” 

“That was a pretty good night.” 

“That was a great night,” Maxwell corrected him.  

7.5 light years and over 1,100 days from that beach… it felt like a lifetime had gone by between then and now.  But the memory still made both Jacobi and Maxwell smile.  It still sent a feeling of Gemütlichkeit, of home, through them both.  

**Author's Note:**

> For [Jasmin](http://eulenstadt.tumblr.com/) for helping with the fic and just being generally awesome.


End file.
